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| [Note Guidelines] Photographer's Note |
Lexias pardalis, The Archduke is a powerful flyer and is difficult to capture on the wing. The species exhibits sexual dimorphism where the male (shown here) is black with greenish blue wing margins whilst the female is dark brown with yellow spots on both wings. The male shown here is from Brunei, and is very similar to examples from the Malay Peninsula which have the subspecific name dirteana Corbet, 1941. A very similar-looking species, Lexias dirtea merguia, can be distinguished from L. pardalis, by its antennal club - the apical portion is orange-brown in pardalis but entirely black in dirtea. It is essentially a jungle butterfly and is relatively common in lowland forests. Eliot suggests in Butterflies of the Malay Peninsula, Corbet and Pendlebury (4th Edn), that dirtea "largely replaces" pardalis in Malaya at elevations in excess of 1500 feet.
The larva of dirtea has been found in Java feeding on Garcinia laterifolia Rosier, 1940, and when fully grown it is rather bluish green, with two pale curved lines dorsally on each segment and yellowish green lateral feathery appendages. That of pardalis is likely to be very similar. A photo, apparently of a larva of pardalis is posted here, but the quality is not very good.
The Archduke and its congeners are attracted by rotting fruit (pineapple and guava are favourites) and can be found feeding greedily on these fruits on the forest floor. As with most butterflies that feed on old fruit, they can also be lured onto rancid prawns. So a good plan is to have fresh prawns for dinner and keep the heads. legs and other inedible bits in a plastic bag for a few days. Once these start to liquefy, you can see many things that would otherwise remain elusive. Morphinae (Amathusiidae) in SE Asia are especially fond of old seafood.
This image has been scanned from a 35mm slide and post-processed in Photoshop CS3 for TN. |
jcoowanitwong, haraprasan has marked this note useful
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Hello Alan,
Not often to see a butterfly from Brunei. This is a nice one. POV and composition are great. TFS this Archduke.
JC
Hi Alan,
A beautiful butterfly very well captured and scanned. Very good details and composition. Thanks a lot for sharing.
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