Stationary Mimic - _TNY_1868
In Stockholm and the surrounding parts of Sweden, week 9 is winter holiday for the schools. This meant that when I was visiting the Haga Ocean butterfly house that week - there were significantly more visitors than a usual weekday.
Since I am quite fond of talking, this meant a lot more chatting about butterflies and this one became a go-to subject.
It's a male yellow mormon (Papilio lowii), also known as the Asian swallowtail, and he had landed on a leaf at about eye-level and didn't move for several hours.
Knowing he was right there, I could point him out to other visitors and I'm certain he was the most photographed butterfly there that day.
I've just learend that this species, like all the mormons, mimic the red-bodied swallowtail which isn't a single species, but rather a whole bunch of them. Those are venomous which obviously make them not so popular on the menu for birds.
They obviously look similar to these (not much mimicry otherwise), but as the name suggests, their body has a much larger portion of red (equally obviously).
Stationary Mimic - _TNY_1868
In Stockholm and the surrounding parts of Sweden, week 9 is winter holiday for the schools. This meant that when I was visiting the Haga Ocean butterfly house that week - there were significantly more visitors than a usual weekday.
Since I am quite fond of talking, this meant a lot more chatting about butterflies and this one became a go-to subject.
It's a male yellow mormon (Papilio lowii), also known as the Asian swallowtail, and he had landed on a leaf at about eye-level and didn't move for several hours.
Knowing he was right there, I could point him out to other visitors and I'm certain he was the most photographed butterfly there that day.
I've just learend that this species, like all the mormons, mimic the red-bodied swallowtail which isn't a single species, but rather a whole bunch of them. Those are venomous which obviously make them not so popular on the menu for birds.
They obviously look similar to these (not much mimicry otherwise), but as the name suggests, their body has a much larger portion of red (equally obviously).