‘Crimson Rose’- Red-bodied Swallowtail Butterfly (Pachliopta hector L.) at MSSBG

This week’s interesting fact states on a beauty in its abundance at MSSBG. It spreads its wings with a span of 10cm with its eye-catching pattern of colour. It’s a butterfly commonly found at MSSBG, ‘the Crimson Rose’, having blacklong tailed wing with rose spots on it and white tinges on its forewing. The distribution of this butterfly is extensive in South and South-East Asia.

Its life span ranges from a few weeks to a year. The female butterfly chooses a healthy Aristolochiaceae plant to ensure the adequacy of food for its voracious caterpillar. They lay eggs on top of the leaves or underneath or even on shoots and it is reddish in colour. The caterpillar crawls around with its blackish brown body, red tipped tubercles and white band transversely placed on segments. Pupae are brownish with pink margin. When an adult makes its way out of the chrysalis, the hard skin, takes a few hours to dry its wings for its first flight. Being cold blooded it cannot fly when its body temperature is below 28 °C.

With its compound eyes it can recognize green, yellow and red colours; with its antenna it can smell, hear and feel, and with its long tube like proboscis it can have nectar, rotting fruits and water. The bright colour used as camouflage to scare its predators and attract its mates. Its beauty is a warning to its predator on its poison, which is sequestered from its larval food. Further disturbed it produces a nasty smell to get rid of them. Some predators are co-evolved with the butterfly thus not affected by its poison. This butterfly is also being mimicked by a female morph of common Mormon.