Bhutan Glory Butterfly

Facts about Bhutan Glory Butterfly, "Scientific name for Bhutan Glory Butterfly is Bhutanitis lidderdalii". Bhutan Glory Butterfly is a Bhutanitis variety of swallowtail butterfly that comes from the Papilionidae family. These butterflies are prevalent in Bhutan, the northeastern parts of India and in the southeastern parts of Asia. The Bhutan Glory butterfly is a much sought after stunning insect by collectors. The Bhutan Glory Butterfly fly between 5000 feet (1524 meters) and 9000 feet (2743 meters) in their Indian range and they usually keep to the edges rather than the gorges. They will fly at treetop, with a sluggish, drifting, erratic flight. The see-through grayish underside of the Bhutan Glory Butterfly makes them difficult to differentiate in the shadows. During the rainy season, they sit on leaves with their front wings drooped over the back wings, hiding their vivid upper coloration. The Bhutan Glory butterfly has a practice of hill-topping and trips flowers of different species.

Features

The Bhutan Glory butterfly has a dull black color body, with slender, curly, cream-colored striations running perpendicularly across their wings. Both males and female Bhutan Glory Butterfly in the species are identical in appearances, having elongated round front wings with convex termen and several-tailed back wings. On the top of the back wing, the butterfly has a prominent, huge tornal patch with yellow to orange color lunules bordering their tails, inner bluish-black color patches with white color ocelli and a pink post-discal band on the inside edge. Beneath the back wing, the Bhutan Glory Butterfly has gray as the base color and the striations are marked and the colors suppressed or paler. The upperside of the wings of both genders of Bhutan Glory butterfly is dull black.

The front wing of the Bhutan Glory butterfly has the following ochraceous white-colored slender markings. There are base, sub-base, median and preapical stripes run from costa across the cell. The base, sub-base, median lines are continued in a sequence of approximately diffuse arcs to the dorsal border, and the preapical line ends at the third vein. Beyond the apex of the cell, a fairly broken oblique line runs from costa to the third vein, followed by a full discal oblique line. There is a short, slightly ill-defined upper postdiscal line, which ends on the fourth vein and a sub terminal full line. All the lines excluding the lines that cross the cell formed of a sequence of short curved stripes in the interspaces.

The back wing of the Bhutan Glory butterfly appears with analogous ochraceous white stripes almost in continuance of those on the front wing with the accumulation of a wide line along the first vein and the median vein. These two stripes do not contact much ahead of the base of the fourth vein. The Bhutan Glory Butterfly wing has a huge minor discal patch, the pink-colored inner half, the soft-black colored external half, followed by wide sub terminal bright yellow-colored lunules in the first to the fourth inter-spaces.

The tail of the Bhutan Glory butterfly has an extremely narrow edge, with ochraceous white in color. The black color on the external half of the discal patch is found in the first and second inter-spaces. The extremely huge ill-defined superposed white color spots are densely shaded with brownish grey color except down the inside margins.

The underside of the Bhutan Glory butterfly is similar, with broader markings. The base of the cell in their back wing is crossed by a small ochraceous-white color bar, and the borders of the pre-costal cell are crossed by with narrow stripes of the identical color. The Bhutan Glory Butterfly have black colored Antennae black and their thorax, head and abdomen appear with dull black in color.

Diet

The Bhutan Glory butterfly has a practice of hill-topping and visiting flowers of different food plants and feeds on their nectars. The caterpillars feed on the leaves of a variety of food plants.

Breeding

The Bhutan Glory butterflies are recognized to have two broods in a year, with the first brood from May to June and the second brood from August to October. The Bhutan Glory Butterfly are prone to be inedible by their predators, owing to their food plant being Aristolochia spp. Bhutan Glory Butterfly are insects. A Bhutan Glory Butterfly is a herbivore; Meaning that as a caterpillar its first food is its own eggshell and than it will eat the leaves of the plant on which it is hatched. When it becomes a butterfly, it will feed mostly on nectar from flowers, rotting fruit and water with a "proboscis" - a long narrow tube in their mouth that looks like a straw.

Life cycle of a Bhutan Glory Butterfly comes in four stages, egg, larva "caterpillars", pupa "chrysalis" and adult Butterfly.
A Bhutan Glory Butterfly will attach its eggs to leaves with a special glue.
A Bhutan Glory Butterfly is cold-blooded, which means the body temperature is not regulated on its own. A Bhutan Glory Butterfly can't fly or eat if their body temperature is below 82 degrees fah (28 cel). Butterfly's are often basking in the sun with their wings open to gain heat and than the veins in the wings carry the heat to the body.
A Butterfly has sense organ, on their feet or tarsi, for tasting
The estimate is between 15000 and 20000 different species of butterfly.

A Bhutan Glory Butterfly has a small body, made up of three parts – the head, abdomen and thorax. A Butterfly has two large eyes, which are made up of many small parts which are called "compound eyes".
A Bhutan Glory Butterfly has two antenna's on the top of their heads, which they use to smell, hear and feel. A Bhutan Glory Butterfly mouth is a long tube a "proboscis" - a long narrow tube in their mouth that looks like a straw when its done eating, it rolls the tube back up.

A Bhutan Glory Butterfly has three pairs of legs and their feet have little claws that help them stand on flowers. The butterfly's wings are made up of hard tubes that are covered with a thin tissue. The Bhutan Glory Butterfly wings are covered with fine dusty like scales. A Bhutan Glory Butterfly has four brightly colored wings having distinctive patterns made up of tiny scales. The bright patterns scales sometimes have hidden ultraviolet patterns for attracting mates. The bright colors are also used as camouflage to hide them or scare off predictors.

When caterpillars become fully grown they will attach to an appropriate leaf or small branch, than they will shed the outside layer of their skin and a hard skin underneath known as a "chrysalis" will be their new look
An adult Bhutan Glory Butterfly will come out from the "chrysalis" than it waits a few hours for its wings to dry and fill with blood, before it takes its first flight.

Bhutan Glory Butterfly can see yellow, green, and red. An adult Bhutan Glory Butterfly average life span is from a week to a year
The top flight speed of a Bhutan Glory Butterfly is 12 miles per hour (19 Km/ph) and some moths can fly up to 25 miles per hour (40 Km/ph).