The World of Birdwing Butterflies

SCHOENBERGIA PARADISEA

IUCN conservation status category: INDETERMINATE.

The first description of Schoenbergia paradisea is an obscure story.

The first specimen was collected by a local hunter in New Guinea. It was purchased by Dr. Hagge, a German. Via another German, Mr. Wahnes, the specimen - together with a female collected by Mr. Wahnes himself - ended up with von Schönberg. von Schönberg turned the specimen over to Dr. Arnold Pagenstecher for description. Dr. Pagenstecher was a careful person, so after having prepared his manuscript he sent some copies to his contemporary colleagues. One of them was Mr. O. Staudinger, who did the unheard violation to publish Pagenstecher's manuscript under his own name. It even meant that Mr. Staudinger "described" paradisea without having ever seen a specimen with his own eyes. The holotype specimen, which is now believed to be lost, was the male in Pagenstecher's possession.

For further reading on this story, reference is made to Haugum & Low (1979).

S. paradisea is a sexually-dimorphic butterfly which appears to be distributed over most of New Guinea. During the last couple of decades it has become evident that the species is more widely distributed than was previously known with such new records as Sorong (ssp. occidentalis) in the extreme west of New Guinea, and Lake Kutubu in the Southern Highlands Province, Papua New Guinea. Its present distribution in eastern PNG remains uncertain.

According to the revision of Mr Gilles Deslisle (2004) only three subspecies should be accepted; p.paradisea, p.arfakensis and p.chrysanthemum.

TIP:
To view the images of this species, click on the name of the species.
To go direct to the images of a specific subspecies, click on the name of the subspecies.