Image credit: Wikimedia commons
According to the latest issue of Journal Bionotes , a Himalayan butterfly named golden birdwing is now India’s largest. The southern birdwing held this title for 88 years.
With a wingspan of 194 mm, the female of the species is marginally larger than the southern birdwing (190 mm).
The new measurements of Himalayan butterfly and 24 other species of butterflies were published recently.
The smallest is the quaker (Neopithecops zalmora) with a wingspan of 18 mm..
The largest female golden birdwing’s forewing length is 90 mm.
The updated wingspan of three species — all from Uttarakhand — after the golden birdwing are the common windmill (Byasa polyeuctes) at 98 mm, the great windmill (Byasa dasarada) at 96 mm, and the common peacock (Papilio bianor) at 78 mm.
About Himalayan butterfly
Brigadier William Harry Evans, a British military officer and lepidopterist, recorded southern birdwing ((Troides minos) in 1932. But the male golden birdwing (Troides aeacus) is much smaller at 106 mm.
Shristee Panthee of the University of Chinese Academy of Sciences in Yunnan and Peter Smetacek of the Butterfly Research Centre at Bhimtal in Uttarakhand are the authors of the study.
While the female golden birdwing was recorded from Didihat in Uttarakhand, the largest male was from the Wankhar Butterfly Museum in Shillong.
(Source: The Hindu)
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