Brian Fletcher O. paradisea paradisea photos

Second instar larva of O. paradisea paradisea on leaf of foodplant, notice how the leaf has been eaten from the tip backwards, which is typical for this species.

The larva of O. paradisea paradisea

The pupa of O. paradisea paradisea

Pristine female of O. paradisea paradisea

The male of O. paradisea paradisea

Sometimes it is nice to know something about the man behind the photographs. Dr Brian Fletcher was born in Derbyshire in the U. K. He became interested in all types of wildlife at a early age, but particularly in moths, and spent many evenings in his early teens collecting them in his garden using a M. V. moth trap and searching for them in the local woods and nearby moorland. He later completed a degree in Zoology, and a PHD on the daily rhythms in beetles at the University of Birmingham. He got a job as a research scientist at the Entomological department at Sydney University and moved to Australia in 1966.

Most of his work was the research on the ecology and behavior of the Queensland Fruit Fly Bactrocera tryoni, a serious pest of most types of fruit in Australia, PNG, Fiji, Tonga and Western Samoa. He mentions that he was a hands on biologist and as his profession became more and more desk bound he retired in 1994. This enabled him to spend more time in countries he was particularly interested in visiting. One of these was Papua New Guinea where he researched the Fruit Fly Fauna there, and where the opportunity came to study Ornithoptera paradisea, because seeing this butterfly in the wild, was a dream he had from childhood when he first saw it in a ' Illustrated Encyclopedia'. Later he took another job in Bhutan funded by the Australian Government studying Fruit Fly pest of Mandarins, one of this countries main cash crops. He now is lucky enough to travel a lot to different parts of the world to see the sites, culture and wildlife. He still finds New Guinea a fascinating Island, certainly for birds and butterflies and when he goes there he always tries to see as much as the wildlife as possible. This also includes plants, particularly Orchids.

Peter.