Butterflies of
New Guinea
Tithonus Birdwing
Ornithoptera
tithonus
DE HAAN, 1840
Family -
PAPILIONIDAE
subfamily -
PAPILIONINAE
Tribe - TROIDINI
|
 |
|
Tithonus Birdwing
Ornithoptera tithonus,
Meni, Arfak, Irian
Jaya © Jean
Michel |
Introduction
The genus
Ornithoptera ( regarded by some authors as a subgenus of
Troides ) comprises of some of the largest and most
magnificent butterflies on Earth. There are 13 species, including Queen
Alexandra's Birdwing, Ornithoptera alexandrae, the
female of which is the largest butterfly in the world, with a wingspan of up to
20cms ( 8" ). The commonest and most widespread species is
priamus which is found in the Moluccas, New Guinea, the Solomon islands
and northern Australia.
Another famous species is
croesus, which inspired the legendary explorer and
naturalist Alfred Russell Wallace to write the following :
"During
my very first walk into the forest at Batchian, I had seen
sitting on a leaf out of reach, an immense butterfly of a
dark colour marked with white and yellow spots. I could
not capture it as it flew away high up into the forest,
but I at once saw that it was a female of a new species of Ornithoptera or "bird-winged
butterfly," the pride of the Eastern tropics.
I was very anxious to get
it and to find the male, which in this genus is always of
extreme beauty. During the two succeeding months I only
saw it once again, and shortly afterwards I saw the male
flying high in the air at the mining village. I had begun
to despair of ever getting a specimen as it seemed so rare
and wild; till one day, about the beginning of January, I
found a beautiful shrub with large white leafy bracts and
yellow flowers, a species of
Mussaenda, and saw one of these noble insects
hovering over it, but it was too quick for me, and flew
away.
The next day I went
again to the same shrub and succeeded in catching a
female, and the day after a fine male. I found it to be as
I had expected, a perfectly new and most magnificent
species, and one of the most gorgeously coloured
butterflies in the world. Fine specimens of the male are
more than seven inches across the wings, which are velvety
black and fiery orange, the latter colour replacing the
green of the allied species.
The beauty and brilliancy
of this insect are indescribable, and none but a
naturalist can understand the intense excitement I
experienced when I at length captured it. On taking it out
of my net and opening the glorious wings, my heart began
to beat violently, the blood rushed to my head, and I felt
much more like fainting than I have done when in
apprehension of immediate death. I had a headache the rest
of the day, so great was the excitement produced by what
will appear to most people a very inadequate cause."
Ornithoptera tithonus is endemic to Irian Jaya ( the western half of New
Guinea ).
Habitats
This species breeds in primary rainforest in valleys of the
Arfak mountains in Irian Jaya.
Lifecycle
To be completed.
Adult behaviour
Ornithoptera tithonus and related
birdwing species breed in the valleys of the Arfak mountains, but both sexes
"hill-top" at the ridges between the valleys, where courtship and copulation
take place. The butterflies are highly prized by butterfly collectors, and are
caught by native Papuan hunters, who spread out large sheets of red cloth to
lure the butterflies to the ground. At a typical collecting spot, an
Ornithoptera species descends to the red cloth
about once every 10 minutes.
|
