Saturday, June 12, 2010

Long Tailed Spangle - Papilio macilentus

Long Tail Spangle ( Papilio macilentus ) - 긴꼬리제비나비 ( in Korean ) is one of 700 species of Swallowtail butterflies.

Of course the number of species of Papilionidae have most like increased so 700 is just what I'm going by according to my books. There's plenty of more out there waiting to be discovered for sure and I look forward to hopefully finding out about them.

Usually with tropical butterflies there isn't a lick of information on them. But with this one I was pleasantly surprised that there was something on them.

Once again Wikipedia provides. I advise you to do extra research.

Papilio macilentus is a Papilionidae butterfly found in Japan, China and Korea. It is found in the valleys or the margins of the forest. This species has the longest tail in the family Papilionidae.

The spring type is found from April to June, and the summer type from July to August. The larvae feed on citrus. During daytime, females fly low and lay eggs one by one on the leaves of the plants. The species hibernates in the pupal stage.

Males have whitish markings in the overlapping part between the fore wings and the hind wings.

Funnily enough I think that this is the only fully black Swallowtail that I know of atm.

Bonus: A video of a male Papilio macilentus drinking minerals from the soil



Absolutely beautiful. I would die if I saw any tropical lepidoptera.

Until next time!

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I just wanted to say that there are HORDES of these spectacular creatures near my workplace in Jeollanamdo province in the summer months. They love cosmos flowers and lilies. An amazing sight to see them flying about...

Brittanie said...

Really? That's amazing! I would love to see that. We get tons of cabbage whites, red admirals, monarchs, silver spotted skippers, and the occasional Eastern tailed blue.

And as of last year 2 tiger swallowtails. Would love to spend a week or something down there or any tropical country and see all the gorgeous butterflies.

Unknown said...

I've just seen one in my garden in UK. Am I seeing things . Help am i going mad