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Project Noah Nature School
Papilio bianor ganesa
Picture says it all
Located in a botanical garden near my home. Butterfly flew away immediately after the shutter closed and was not able to take another. I usually take a series.
Found this pict from last year before I joined Noah. THought it was nice and hoped it would be ID'ed by our community. Thank you.
Please note also, the location is not often accurate from mobile devices or latently after downloading the pictures at home. Mobiles often do not allow the changes to the correct longitude and latitude. At home often the exact location is not easily discerned unless you know the longitude and lattitude
@Ryan Fezz I will make the change the subject's name to your suggestion. I do want to note that until recently I have never had the opportunity to interact with you in any way. If I have as you have charged " ignored with the suggestions to this person in the past" I am completely unaware of this exchange, or lack of exchange, and offer my apology.
Hello Mick G, I am sorry if you took my comments to be negative, I did my best to sound professional and even handed and I am sorry if pointing out issues with your sighting could be construed as negative but that was not my intend nor do I feel that I achieved such a tone. I was, however, attempting to convey a sense of urgency, as I mentioned it is important to me and my institution that such things not be erroneously reported. Please understand that if USDA or DPI thought some exotic lepidopteran escaped from our exhibit we could be shut down and I could lose my job so I hope you can understand my sense of urgency and why I think it is necessary for that sense of urgency.
karenl. thank you. I've been away for a while due to some personal issues. haven't felt much like taking shots recently. I have not ignored this individual. I understand his desire to share but the urgency and negativity are unnecessary. I have not been known to falsify sightings. I'll update as soon as I am at a desktop.
Hello Karen, per your request I have made the suggestion and my apologies for not doing so. Having been ignored with the suggestions to this person in the past I felt it important that I go into greater detail this time as such a sighting could have major implications and I take it quite seriously. Thank you for your quick and even-handed response and I will endeavor to follow through with suggestions whenever possible.
Ryan, thank you for your comprehensive comments. I've checked out Papilio bianor & it does look like it is a candidate for this butterfly. Many species do look extremely similar (I understand that there are species so similar they can only be distinguished by DNA analysis when they are outside of their normal range) - in fact some IDs provoke heated debate among our experts! We do have several butterfly experts within our community, we also have many keen amateurs & we encourage all our members to contribute species IDs as that enables us to ensure as many of the hundreds of thousands of spottings within our database are identified as possible - it also provides a learning opportunity for all concerned. Species suggestions are voted on by other members who have the opportunity to click on the "+" in the top right corner in they agree, or to suggest an alternative ID if they disagree, & hopefully add further detail explaining the reason behind the alternative suggestion (as you have done). Please can you add your species suggestion (with a resource link) to the ID suggestion box so that Mick & other users can check it out. Thanks.
I have so many questions and concerns with this sighting. If it was sighted at Gumbo Limbo (which is a city park run by Boca Raton, not a state park) then why is the sighting location in Palatka, some 200 miles north? Also, I've been to Gumbo Limbo and I don't recall there being any Bougainvillea there, mostly just native plants. Next, the only way such a species could get there would be to escape from a Butterfly House and if it was Palatka it could have been Butterfly Rainforest but since I'm the Assistant Manager there I can assure you we aren't even permitted to have such a species as I wrote our permits myself. The closest to Gumbo Limbo would be Butterfly World in Cocanut Creek and I know they gave up on importing Citrus feeding Swallowtails years ago thanks to USDA which leaves the new butterfly house way down in Coral Gables at Fairchild, which from my experience has flown citrus feeding swallowtails but didn't open until December of 2012, half a year after this photo was taken. Lastly, the species it has been ID'ed as is not in commercial production and no one I am aware of sells it. However, Papilio bianor is in production, has a blue/green stripe down the middle of the tail on the dorsal side and has a row of red spots on the ventral side as we see here so that's where I would put my money.
it was taken outdoors at Gumbo Limbo, a state park with a garden to attract butterflies. my guess, a released butterfly.
I assume this was taken at an indoor butterfly display. I would suggest removing this from the Butterflies of Florida and Insects of Florida missions and perhaps adding it to the Captive Animals mission.
At first glance, I thought it was the female of the Common Mormon butterfly (Papilio polytes).
Check links mentioned on following websites to get exact match...
http://www.butterfliesandmoths.org/taxon...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_but...)
Spotted on May 10, 2012
Submitted on Feb 15, 2013
