Wednesday, March 3, 2010

Wildlife on Wednesday ... The Red-Bodied Swallowtail (Pachliopta polydorous)

One of the most beautiful butterfly visitors I've ever seen in my garden.


This particular butterfly is rarely ever seen around my part of north Queensland ... it's mostly seen in the rainforests up on Cape York which is far to the north of us.  It is in fact a rainforest butterfly and is seldom spotted far from the margins of a rainforest so we are particularly blessed to have spotted this beauty in our garden.



The wings of this species are simply spectacular with the black with white streaks and elongated white spots. As the common name suggests, the sides and tip of the body is a beautiful rose-red.

12 comments:

  1. Wow! that is an amazing butterfly, with spectacular colours, and you have photographed him/her so well
    K

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  2. Oh Bernie, this is one for the science books. The children in school always loved studying butterflies.

    Eileen

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  3. Thanks Karen ... luckily the butterfly made my job so easy as it was happy to sit for ages sucking on the nectar of those flowers. Usually I have trouble getting photos of butterflies ... but this one stayed still just long enough for me to get a few shots.

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  4. G'day Eileen ... I did show these photos to my class on the big projector screen and they were impressed! As you say ... butterflies are a big hit!

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  5. What a gorgeous butterfly! And your photos are so vivid!! Very nice...thank you for sharing!

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  6. Oh, what a butterfly Bernie! What I wouldn't give for one of these to visit down South, but it's never going to happen - and I guess something would have gone seriously wrong with the weather if it did!

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  7. Wow that is one beautiful butterfly. It sure was enjoying the plant. Great pictures!
    Lona

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  8. What a beautifully elegant looking butterfly. Great photographs!

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  9. I know this comment has already been made, but I just need to add my own WOW!!! -Jean

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  10. A neat find. Great photo's. Glad it obliged and stayed around so you could share it's pictures.

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  11. Bernie these are wonderful photographs! I am so envious of your bush gardens! We don't get these in suburban Canberra .. well that's probably also to do with the fact that my cat eats butterflies
    Please keep up the photos!

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  12. Awsome pictures! Just what I needed for a project Im doing at school on this exact butterfly. Thnx!

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