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Ornithoptera

       Today I am going to start a series on a few major geneses of butterflies including Morpho, Charaxes, and Danaus. It will probably be 4-5 posts long, but I may do more. So lets jump right into the genus Ornithoptera!


       This genus is my favorite geneses of butterflies. Their size, rarity, and color make them one of the most coveted geneses of butterflies. There are many different variations in this genus. The most extreme variations are called aberrant, or aberrations. These butterflies were deformed when they came out of their chrysalis or flew in regions with an excess amount of UV rays which resulted in them looking quite different.


        The most common species of Ornithoptera would be either Ornithoptera croesus, or Ornithoptera priamus, more commonly known as Wallace’s golden birdwing, and the emerald birdwing. They are both wide-spread throughout northern Australia, New Guinea, and southern Asia. A male emerald birdwing is a vibrant green and black butterfly that can grow to almost 6”. These butterflies fly quite low to the ground and are very easy to identify. Though not as pretty, the female can grow up to 7” across. The interesting thing about the emerald is that it can be either blue or green.





My personal favorite Ornithoptera species would be the Tithonus birdwing and the Aesacus birdwing. A male Tithonus is a stunning lime green and gold, it is also one of the least likely butterfly in this genus to be an aberrant. These genuses fly very high in the canopy and are rarely caught. The Aesacus birdwing is the only butterfly that I know about that has the blue-grey color on it. It is also probably one of the top 10 rarest butterflies in the world. This genus is only found on the island of Obira near New Guinea.

                Finally, the rarest Ornithoptera butterfly, Ornithoptera allotei, or the Allotei birdwing. This butterfly is a hybrid butterfly. This butterfly is a cross between Victoria’s birdwing and the emerald birdwing. They are worth upwards of $3000 and are very intricate. This butterfly is so limited to where they can be found that there have been only 100 or so of them that have been caught. The females are even rarer because of their close resemblance to the female emerald birdwing. There are less than 100 Allotei butterflies that are in collections.




               I have 17 butterflies from this genus in my collection, which has over 300 butterflies. I also have seen four of the six species that I talked about in person. Well, that about sums it up for me. I hope I didn’t dump too much information on you. I’ll be back next week to finish my four part series on butterflies and their subspecies.

                Yours truly,

                                Jack

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