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Red-bodied Swallowtail
Photo: C & D Frith
Australia's Cape York Peninsula
Red-bodied Swallowtail:
Pachliopta polydorous
- This is one of the most common species in the Wet Tropics, seen
along tracks and near the edges of rainforest patches. The adults are slow flyers and
often feed at flowers growing at forest margins.
- Its larvae feed on Aristolochia vines, also used by the similar Big Greasy
Butterfly and Birdwing Butterflies.
- After an egg is laid on a leaf, the young larva eats the eggshell before feeding on the
food plant.
- The caterpillars are brown with several random tubercles of red or yellow colour.
- They generally pupate under a leaf but some have been known to pupate beneath rocks
amongst vine thickets.
- Other papilionid butterflies found in the same area include the Ulysses Butterfly and
the Capaneus Butterfly.
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