Common Lime

Description:

Papilionidae; Papilioninae; Papilionini; Papilio demoleus demoleus Linnaeus, 1758. I think this Common Lime is a female (by comparing my photos with those shown in Philippine Lepidoptera). There is a small problem with the identification. The background colour of P. d. demoleus is always black, as far as I know, but as you can see, on this butterfly it is brown. However, the specimen shown here was flying around the garden in rainy, windy conditions and was looking slightly tattered. So it may just be that some of the scales had been lost and that could possibly affect the colour.

Habitat:

This Common Lime was spotted in our front garden at 4:00 pm this afternoon. It was visiting many different plants and was spending no more than a few seconds on each one.