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Clearwing Swallowtail - Cressida cressida
FAMILY PAPILIONIDAE
This page contains information and pictures about Clearwing Swallowtail Butterflies in the Brisbane area, Queensland, Australia. They are also known as Greasy swallowtail or Big greasy.
- Male, wingspan 70mm
- Clearwing Swallowtail Butterfly is the medium size swallowtail butterfly. The male and female look very different. Female is pale brown in colour, with scales on wings lost and become clear. The abdomen is black with orange colour between segments. Male is more colourful, with black dots on front clear wings. The hind wings are red, black and white in colour. The abdomen is red on black, the strong warning colours.
- Male, wingspan 70mm
- This Clearwing Swallowtail Butterfly is locally common in some area in Brisbane.
- Along Eugenia Circuit near Simpson Falls, during mid and late summer, there were many male and female Clearwing Swallowtail Butterflies.
- Males and females behave very differently as well. Males always fly non-stop during the sunny day. They fly about 2 meters above ground, patrolling their territory about a 100 meters long.
Male
Female
- Female, wingspan 60mm
- Females are always found flying very close to the ground, looking for host plants to lay eggs.
- In Anstead Forest Reserve near the hill top, there were always those Clearwing Swallowtail Butterflies during the summer season. However, they seldom rest so we had not taken any of their good pictures yet. Above pictures were taken on Feb 2009.
- Finally we got some good female pictures.
- This female butterfly has more pattern and red colour on abdomen.
- On a Dec 2009 morning, the weather was not very good but still there was the sunshine. In the Anstead Forest we saw occasionally some male Clearwing Swallowtail Butterflies flying around. Suddenly it started raining and the temperature dropped by a few degree. We understood that the butterflies should stop flying and we looked around and tried to found any of them. Then we saw a female Clearwing Swallowtail rested on grass near the ground. It flied away for a short distance when we came closer. Anyway, we managed to took a few photos.
- Reference:
- 1. Create More Butterflies - by Frank Jordan and Helen Schwencke, Earthling Enterprises, 2005, p13.
