The World of Birdwing Butterflies

TROIDES RHADAMANTUS

Troides rhadamantus was described by Boisduval in 1836, but already the previous year Lucas had referred to Boisduval's forthcoming manuscript. As Boisduval's paper was published after Lucas' reference, Lucas is standing as the valid auctor of this species!

T. rhadamantus inhabits the Philippines and is the country's most common birdwing.

The taxonomic relationship between T. rhadamantus rhadamantus, T. rhadamantus plateni and T. dohertyi is unsettled. Haugum & Low (1985) argued strongly for placing both plateni and dohertyi as subspecies of T. rhadamantus, while others (e.g. Tsukada & Nishiyama, 1980, 1982) accepted all of them as distinct species. The position taken in this work was used by e.g. Ohya (1983).

T. rhadamantus' flight is high above ground in the warm gullies and creeks, but the species frequently visits lower flowers such as Lantana.

Mr. Jan Petersen reports that ranching or breeding is easier with plateni than with T. trojana. Pupae can often be found on Aristolochia tagala in private gardens.

Considerable geographical variations exist within the Philippines of ssp. rhadamantus, perhaps not very surprising considered the great number of islands comprising the Philippines.
 

TIP:
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© Tony Nagypal, 2000