Papilio Montrouzieri

it's not entirely proven what produces the 2 forms. but it would be interesting to see if the 2 forms occur from the same locality, that would give a better understanding to either genetic's, or exposure to heat, or sunlight for that matter play a part.

Zac

Hello,

I'm Thierry from New Caledonia.
Thank you very much for your interest about the Papilio montrouzieri, which is for me one of the most beautiful species here.
This lovely butterfly flies all year, and in all biotopes. As sometone said, you can find it flying around in gardens in the capital, center of the city. This is a common specie, but not so easy to get. Best way is to catch them when they feed on pentas flowers, or others...
Problem is that most of them are damaged, not easy to get an A1 quality spm...
So I've started to breed them a long time ago to get perfect A1 specimens.
Now I'm careful, because as Olivier said, this buttefly is protected by our local Environmental code, in north and south Provinces, but still not protected in the Loyalty islands Province.
I don't know why they put this specie on the list of threatened and protected species, this is ridiculous as this is an ubiquist and you can find it on the islands, on the mainland, everywhere.....just one insect on the list, and they put this one....a shame....so many other species should be protected, more than this one...
The risk to get one and be controlled by customs, police or so...is a bit important, as you can go to jail for 6 months, and pay a fine about 10000 USD !!!...that's why this butterfly is more and more hard to find on market for selling or exchanging....local collectors are very careful now...
About the forms, they are quite old and were described by two authors :

1) ulyseLlus form (Westwood 1861) : this one shows more blue on the wings. Some specimens can be very blue, more than 90% of the surface of wings.
2) Westwoodi form (Oberthür 1879) : for this form, blue parts are reduced.

The most common form is the Westwoodi one, more than 90% or the specimens caught in the wild and bred.
The ulysellus form is more present when it's very hot, in summer time, from december to february, or bit later...
For me they are not real distinct forms, as when you make a large sery of specimens, you can see spms from the less blue to the more blue ones, with a lot of variations. You can not see real distinct forms.
I think this is just a seasonnal variation due to the heat.
As you know, many species can show different variations looking to the environmental conditions, the kind of hostplant, period, etc...
I've noticed similar variations on many species here, like the Hypolimnas bolina nerina, which shows the best and impressive variations and forms, when it is bred with a lot of heat, and pupae exposed to the heat. I got extreme variations on pupae let on top of my bytterfly house, at 3,5 meters high, where temperature can reach 35°C sometimes, especially from november to january, summer time.
Same results on Hypolimnas octocula elsina, with a light form with more orange during hot period.
We also experienced a similar situation the first time we bred the Graphium gelon, another endemic and hard to get specie. Bred specimens shown a fade green color, not bright, not metallic at all. In the nature, the specimens shows metallic green bands. As the main host is a very tall tree, generally above canopy in direct sunlights, and looking to the behavior of larvae and pupae which are exposed directly on top of branches, I think they need a lot of sun rays exposure to shows these lovely metallic green bands. In some other tropical countries, I heard they met situation on other Graphium species into butterflies houses...
Still on the G.gelon, we also have two forms here :

1) Megasthenes (Mathew 1889) : the "normal" form, with metallic green bands on HW and FW
2) Taeniolata (Le Cerf 1923) : this form is only present on the Loyalty islands, the metallic green bands dissapears, some spms just have a few green and small spots, some no more spots at all, just brown wings with nothing !....

Same thing for Hypolimnas octocula elsina, on the islands, there's a dark form, really more dark than the normal one.
And other species shows some "melanic forms".
These melanic forms are variations due mostly to the thermic amplitude. On Maré island, we find the most extreme variations, and this is the most coldest island, with some temperature which can reach 4 - 5°C at night end July-August, and more than 22°C the day time.
I'm more a moth specialist and I've noticed same thing on some moth species, especially the endemic sphingid : Psilogramma lifuense.
I thought I've found a new sp on Maré island, sent the spms for DNA and genitalia analysis, and the answer was : same specie, melanic form !....
The Psilogramma complex is known, I've read some posts on this topic once, and the consequences are that some authors described a lot of new species which finally are just melanic forms, natural variations.
I think we need to be very careful with the question of forms and also subspecies....limits are sometimes very very tight....

For people who are interested, some of my pictures from breedings, etc are on this internet site (ENDEMIA, a local site about flora and fauna).
Here's the link for P.montrouzieri :

www.endemia.nc/faune/fiche1422.html

I hope I've answered to all questions...
All the best.
Thierry

Hi Olivier,

I don't like to say "rare"....
For Delias spp, you need to be at the right place, at the good period to collect them.
Both species are not protected.
The Delias ellipsis is feeding on Loranthaceae vines, like these ones :

www.endemia.nc/flore/fiche1319.html
www.endemia.nc/flore/fiche969.html
www.endemia.nc/flore/fiche2047.html

For D.nysa c., I'm not sure, but I think they feed like in Australia on Santalaceae, this one in particular :

www.endemia.nc/flore/fiche5022.html

Both are living in humid forest and on costal areas too, especially for the D.nysa c (isle of pines, Maré island, etc...).
Delias nysa appears in winter, until the summer time. Delias ellipsis starts to emerge in late sept / early october, and is present until the rain period in April-Marsh. After they diapause a few months.
Problem for boths species is that the hostplants are impossible to grow at home, that's very hard !!!....
I've tried many times to get some seeds and put them on trunks on the trees of my land, but with no results. Nobody reached to grow them.
I'm sure the seeds needs to be eaten by birds to be able to germinate....need to verify this point...if someone have some tips for these plants, it would be welcome !!!...thanks !!!...
I've tried once to take off a small shrub with the vine growing on it, but it died after a few weeks....no easy at all....
And these hostplants are quite rare in the forest, very dispersed, difficult to find some real populations. And when you find some, you don't find the larvae....
If you are lucky to find some, the difficulty is to preserve cuttings as fresh as possible to feed the larvae and finish the cycle until pupation. Result is small specimens, fine but smalls compared to the nature.
As you are a specialist for Delias, would you be able to help me finding some Loranthaceae seeds from other countries, most easy to grow ...perhaps that could be a way to breed them more largely....thanks in advance.

In their biotope, the two species are flying very high in the forest. Best is to find them in the maquis or small shrubs on coastal forests, more easy to net them !....into the humid forest, you need a very long net to catch them !!!...but I think that's a real pleasure for Delias catchers....:-)

Best

Thierry

Yes, I think we can compare with the spring and summer forms....
For example, attached, an example of the effect of the heat on Hypolimnas bolina nerina breeding. Below is the normal form, above, the form obtained with heat. Difference is quite interesting...
Thierry

Life is made of chemical reactions. Physical laws and these chemical reactions are strongly coupled to the effects of temperature. Therefore these butterflies can exhibit two different looks depending on where they pupate. Furthermore nature is not black and white in many cases. Therefore either a whole range of intermediates can exist or we have specimens that show two distinct forms, distributed in a specific ratio.

Two examples, Araschnia levana in Europe, all black in summer, orange in spring. The temperature at the moment of pupation dictates how the butterfly will look. Another example is Saturnia pavonia, I have been breeding them since years. The color of the caterpillars varies from green to black. It has been shown by experiment that the amount of black color correlates with the amount of light the caterpillars receive.

Furthermore many people on here argue with high school level genetics, just a quick reminder, they don't teach everything in high school, so be open for unknown ideas.

Rgds Claude.

Hi Claude,
You're absolutely right. The female abb. obtained are still from larvae and pupae hanged on the top of my butterfly house, where the heat is the highest in summer. On the same strain, you can obtain so many variations, that's fun !...
Highschool gives the bases which are necessary, but we must keep an open mind because the nature will always reserve nice surprises to us, for which we do not necessarily have scientific explanations ! ..... that is the magic of the wild that passionate entomologists for generations ...
Thierry

Hi Crino - I have specimens with seasonal variation in other Papilio (Achillides) - changes in size, amount of coloured scaling. Perhaps it is more common in the species that undergo greater seasonal changes such as those further from the equator? (like P. bianor / dehaanii in Japan and P. montrouzieri in New Caledonia) and higher altitude species? (like P. chikae and P. hermeli from montane areas in the Philippines) and less common in the tropical equatorial species that undergo less seasonal change? (like P. ulysses, P. blumei and P. karna). Just a thought. There is a little bit of seasonal variation in the blueness of local P. ulysses joesa, perhaps a little bit more so in the females than the males.

Thanks for the info Zac and Thierry and others.

Ash