It is going to be in the genus Papilio but I'm not familiar with the various species that are found in Brazil. Papilio thoas is my best guess and there are a few subspecies of that.

Papilio thoas brasiliensis

Yes, I do have a citrus here, it is Mandarin orange (Citrus reticulata), although the photo was taken of it over a Japanese honeysuckle (Lonicera Japonica).

I verified, it is called a Giant Swallow Tail, I'll find the scientific name so you'll know what is called in Brazil or Portuguese, and am pretty sure it has a long range into South America. We can probably find some notation on Wikipedia. It is fairly common butterfly in location where there is lots of Citrus. Their caterpillar resembles kaka from a lizard. If you touch the caterpillar a snake tongue come out of the back of their head. And that is probably one of its defense against predators like birds. I have a friend who has a Wild Lime (native to Florida)bush and she claims that Cardinals birds pick and eat her Giant Swallowtail caterpillars all the time.

Here is a bit more information and in fact Wikipedia has a couple of article one under Giant Swallow Tail and another under the scientific name. The SwallowTail family of butterflies are pretty common it is named after the wing tail and when you think about there are quite a bit of them all over the world.

They can be as common as the Monarch butterfly that I think can be seen even in Europe and Africa as well as North and South America as far south as Argentina where a friend from the internet once assure me lived down south too.

But here is some information you wanted. (OH the Black Swallow Tail is kind of similar) Please note that the wing on the top of the Giant ST is much different than the bottom. Please let me know for sure whether this Giant ST does exist on Brazil and it wasn't a fluke that few too far south. By the way that Honeysuckle vine of yours is necter plant to a great variety of butterflies, hummingbirds and other pollinators.

This is a page from the University of Florida at Gainesville.

entnemdept.ufl.edu/creatures/citrus/giantswallowtail.htm

Thank you for the great clarification, franco33139ca. It is really from São Paulo/SP, Brazil, and when I was planning the garden I've choosen plants to attract hummingbirds, like Ixora, Streptosolen jamesonii (marmalade bush) and Grevillea banksii, in addition to the Lonicera Japonica (Honeysuckle).

I live in an area of Miami named Allapattah, meaning alligator in Seminol Indian Language. MIAMI means Sweet Water. Any way this area is fairly closed to downtown Miami, but when I first got here in 1961 when I was twelve, I was impressed that I could see Cardinals, Woodpeckers and am sure hummer were around. Now about all I can see are pigeon and house sparrows. There are those type of birds still I Miami, but they are seen in more affluent and greener space such as South Miami, Miami Shores, Coconut Grove. Am not a birdwatcher, but I like to think that our human environment is much healthier if more diversity of birds and butterflies as well as other pollinators would still be around. People don't seem to understand that without pollinators, there is a greater possibility of crop failure.

Am trying to recreate an urban paradise. I live in a location that takes almost a whole block and I got permission from the administrators to plant trees and shrubs that will feed birds and butterflies. Am hopping neighbors will notice and they will get inspired.

Hummingbirds are a goal of mine, but I don't think I'll see them any time soon in my area.

The other day the administrator hired an arbolist, who did a great job on the trees and I think might have stimulated some tree sap and bugs. Might have been total coincident, but the same day he finished I saw two Red Breast Woodpeckers, something I haven't seen in my area for a few decades. I was unable to keep them around. I just hope they return.

I totally agree with environment being healthier with more diversity of birds and butterflies as well as other pollinators.

From my own experience I can say that a garden and all the species that it attracts are worth all the effort.

Good luck with your urban paradise!

Clinger,

The USA giant swallowtail, Papilio cresphontes, is not found in Brazil. The farthest south it goes is a subspecies in Mexico. The info I gave you last month is where you should start if you are still trying to ID it.

There is a consensus in the genus being Papilio.

http://www.lloydlibrary.org/kids/brazil/brazil.html

Another really beatiful one from the same garden, just for the beauty of it. Most of the wing's pattern resembles a night sky.

According to this website from the UofFlorida does indicate that the Giant Swallowtail distribution goes pass Mexico into Cental and South America. I also noted on the Brazilian Website I posted, but I couldn't get my cellphone keyboard to work that there are Monarch and Zebra Longwings (Zebra being official Florida butterfly). As well as other very similar if not the same types.of butterflies.

I was surprised of the little amount of Website on Brazilian butterflies give the size of the Amazon Rainforest and the amount I thought had been studied. I only Google Butterfly Brazil and found only a handful. When Florida which is only a State has hundreds of sites about South and North Florida nectar and host plants.

That's of course until I googled

Borboleta brazilra and got bombarded, I was beginning to worry. I suppose I need to start searching. "MARIPOSA Sur America or each of the counties in Spanish and find more than..."

https://www.google.com/search?site=&source=hp&ei=_DW6VovnFsyteaf-q7AL&q=translator&oq=tra&gs_l=mobile-gws-hp.1.0.0i131l4j0.21899.23493.0.24917.4.4.0.1.1.0.432.1265.2-2j0j2.4.0....0...1c.1j4.64.mobile-gws-hp..0.4.1087.3.WULNEbPgUAs#q=borboleta+brasileira

In Florida a number of Passion Flowers and Fruites are hosting plants for the Zebra, Julia, Gulf longwing and occasionally the Verigated Frit..

This is nothing short of breathtaking

https://encrypted-tbn2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTTHOIiyyx5n9gDJySKLThjEtJjNUwdzNPEp1c92M6Mzi6-h6Fm

TO your knowledge are the photo in the following web site. These blue butterflies are they from Brazil?

http://www.gostodeler.com.br/images/344/borboletas_azuis.jpg

They seem to be doing the same thing that the Monarch does when they winter in a forest just north of Mexico City.

Every year around October/November the Monarch take as long as a thousand miles flight from as far as Canada, and the rest of the snowy and freezing States of the United States and they all end at this specific site in the Mexican Forest. It is still a mystery because it is on the third or fourth generation of Monarch butterflies who take this long flight to the same location. Yet no one show them how to get there. As the generation who took the last flight to Mexico had already died and several generations later a new generation take the same flight no-one taught them how to get there.

These Monarchs are now in Mexico and should be returning north in April

Are this blubutterflies doing the same?

http://www.gostodeler.com.br/images/344/borboletas_azuis.jpg

This butterfly in the photo seem to be related to the Giant Swallowtail. If I understand the host plant. HOSPEDAHE is citrus type. Keep an eye on your tangerine for caterpillar that appears like lizard droppings.

http://www.borboleta.org/2011/01/papilio-anchisiades-capys.html?m=1

The 9th and 20th photograph in this YouTube presentation seem to be the same or very similar borboleta like the one you were initially concerned about.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=eVU_1FJBjtM

I think you started a monster of curiosity about the borboletas Brazileras. They all appear very colurful. There are even a couple with trasperant wings.

It really looks like the same species.

About the Monarch, I've seen this on the awesome documentary The Incredible Journey of the Butterflies. They've made an experiment changing location of some butterflies to see if they would find the right path to their destination, and, surprisingly, after some time they corrected the route to compensate origin change. They seem to be able to detect their location on earth using some method of localization. And we're talking about a *huge* trip.

Talking about transparent wings, If you all find this curious, take a look at what I've photographed here even before I had a garden. We can't even explain a thing like that, amazingly beautiful in every possible aspect.

Creationist talk about the Amazing human eye, but we are practically blind. We only see small amount of the light spectrum. Many other animals can see at night, infrared and other colors of the spectrum. That likely why the Monarchs can change destination. Bees have very similar strategies locating the sun location of their hive and the source of nectar. Bees do a dance to tell other inv the hive the location of rich sources of nectar.

I understand that some Monarch that have been marked fly through Florida, then down to Cuba, to the Yucatan Peninsula before flying northwest to find the forest in Mexico where they winter..... that is amazing trip.

If humans don't understand the need to study other species survival we can learn to survive our

If you want to attract Monarchs make sure you find milkweed that is native to the geographical area you live.

As for the consensus on the genus being Papilio, that is actually a fluid topic. Heraclides is also being used.

This paper explains that P. cresphontes does not get into South America. Also mentions how people don't know how to distinguish them from P. thaos so they misreport P. cresphontes sightings in places where P. cresphontes don't exist. This type of problem is quite common when you have people reporting sightings who are not up to speed with lesser known species that closely resemble widely known species. P. cresphontes starts on page 118.

In the "Acknowledgements" part of the paper, the author thanks Dr. Andy Warren. If you are on Twitter, I highly recommend following Dr. Warren. He gets around and posts some wonderful Lepidoptera related things.

1 PHYLOGENY AND REVISION OF THE GENUS HERACLIDES HÜBNER, 1819

Got you, and you are most likely right. Yet the University of Florida should double check their information. Rather than take the word of laymen.

I did noticed that some of the Brazilian photograph of the butterflies tha look like Giant ST the bottom of the wing appears dark and not the same as the GST.

Thank you for the article.

One thing I notice in my yard in Florida was that I was already growing about 8 host plants that just grew wild in my yard and we consider them undesirable weeds.

Am now nurturing, watering and fertilizing these undesirable and recominding people to do the same in their homes.

franco,

The U of FL has multiple websites that have to do with entomology. Twice, I have pointed out bad info and gave the counter example of the website actually run by the U of FL entomology department. Bad info was not corrected either time. For this new instance, I'd be surprised if the U of FL doctoral dissertation will get better results but I will give it a shot.

Wow buttrflys an flowers are awesome.. Show us more ,more