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Project Noah Nature School
Graphium agamemnon agamemnon
Papilionidae; Papilioninae; Leptocircini; Graphium agamemnon agamemnon Linnaeus, 1758. This spotting is the last in a series of three which, if looked at consecutively, tell the story of the amazing metamorphosis which takes place when a Papilionid larva pupates for around 11 days and ecloses as an adult. When the excitement of this morning’s emergence of this butterfly died down and I started arranging my photos for this three-part spotting, I was thinking about what I had witnessed, not just the magical transformation of a caterpillar into a beautiful butterfly, but what I saw when I was taking the above pictures in the minutes following the eclosion i.e. the adult butterfly and what it was doing. The first five pictures were taken indoors where I had been keeping the butterfly for eleven days and the last was when I took it out to the garden so that it could fly off when it was ready. So, let’s look at the photos. I have the advantage of having seen what was happening as I was clicking away on the shutter button. So, I will give you my thoughts picture by picture: #1 The butterfly is slightly lower than the top of the leaf and I feel sure that I saw it slip down a little and it put its left front leg out to try and grab the twig (you can check this first picture against the last photo in the eclosion part of this trilogy of spottings). #2 & #3 It seems to be struggling to establish a grip on the shiny leaf surface. It looked a bit like it was doing a Michael Jackson walk – the legs appeared to be going forwards, but the butterfly was going backwards. #4 The leaf was now flapping up and down under the increasingly desperate scrambling of the butterfly and I think he managed to get a hold on the twig when the leaf got close enough. #5 It now has a secure grasp of the twig and has successfully abandoned the leaf. So, I carefully carried it out to the garden so that it could fly off as soon as its wings were stiffened and that was where I took the last photo.
The late instar larva of G. a. agamemnon was spotted on a small Citrus sp. sapling in our backyard. This sapling was well enough developed to allow me to snip off the twig, which the larva was on, so that I could take pictures and make observations at any time, without worrying about the frequent downpours we get at this time of year. All I had to do was put the twig in water so that the leaf with the larva would not wilt and fall off. Then I simply trimmed off all the other leaves (as soon as I was sure that the larva had pupated and would not need to eat). This made sure that I had a clearer view for my photos.
The other two parts of this spotting are - https://www.projectnoah.org/spottings/11... and https://www.projectnoah.org/spottings/13... My related spottings of Papilionid metamorphosis are – https://www.projectnoah.org/spottings/50... https://www.projectnoah.org/spottings/36... https://www.projectnoah.org/spottings/16... https://www.projectnoah.org/spottings/20...
Spotted on Oct 13, 2022
Submitted on Oct 13, 2022
2 Comments
Good Evening Sukanya,
Thank you for your kind words and what an interesting story about your friend's butterfly. To prevent putting any specimens at risk from geckos, I put them inside one of my home made cages that I used for rearing Hawk Moths some years back. I don't do that any more. It is fascinating, but time consuming. The cages are useful for odd occasions when I try something like this spotting. However, that is also time consuming. Setting up a little table for the plant or branch with the pupa, then setting up my tripod and making sure the camera settings are exactly the same each time etc., etc. I guess I am getting old and the energy just isn't there any more. But it is so much fun and even in my "dotage", I still love learning new things. Regards. John B.
Fantastic documentation, John. And your patience and perseverance!!!! Words fail me.
My friend once brought home a pupa and carefully monitored the progress (Me? I do not have such patience) She said the butterfly emerged well past midnight and when she came down in the morning, it was in danger of being eaten by the common house gecko! Thankfully, her presence prevented the tragedy. She called me...I took a few photos, completed the lifecycle spotting (https://www.projectnoah.org/spottings/13... ) and we took the butterfly and set it free on the bush from which we had collected the pupa. We saw another butterfly flying there and thought it was its wild-born sibling!