Common Lime Butterfly

Facts about Common Lime Butterfly, "Scientific name for Common Lime Butterfly is Papilio demoleus malayanus". Common Lime Butterfly is a Papilio type swallowtail butterfly that belongs to the Papilionidae family. The Common Lime Butterfly are native to Africa, and they do not boast a famous tail similar to the other swallowtail butterflies in its family. The Common Lime Butterfly attains its common name from its horde plants, which are habitually citrus varieties, like the Cultivated Lime. The Common Lime butterfly is a pest and persistent variety from Europe, Africa and Asia, which has extended to Central America and the Caribbean.

Features

The Common Lime butterfly is a tailless butterfly, with a wingspan, ranging from 80 mm to 100 mm. The backdrop color of the above part of the Common Lime Butterfly is black. A wide, uneven yellow color band is found on the surface of their wings, which is divided in the case of the front wing. In addition to this, the Common Lime butterfly has a huge amount of uneven spots on their wing. The upper back wing of the butterfly has a red-colored tornal spot with blue color bordering around it. As the caterpillar of the butterfly ages, its appetite for leaf tissue continues to develop.

The upper side of the wings of the Common Lime butterfly contains the ground color black. The front wing of the butterfly has the base beneath the cell and basal half of the last part is so irrorated with yellow color scales to form relatively full transverse sprinkled lines. There are two numbers of externally oblique yellow color spots in the cell such that one spot at the bottom and another spot beyond it in the eighth interspace. There is an arched mark at the Common Lime Butterfly upper apex and a discal transverse sequence of cream-yellow color spots, uneven in the size and arrangement that extends from the eighth interspace. The sequence is interrupted in the fifth interspace and the spot in the seventh interspace is doubled. This is trailed by an admarginal terminal sequence of smaller spots and a sinuous postdiscal sequence of spots.

The base and the edge of the back wings of the Common Lime butterfly decreases in breadth down the dorsal margin, irrorated with yellow color scales. This is trailed by a wide medial yellow color uneven band, a sinuous postdiscal sequence of externally emarginated yellow color spots and a terminal sequence of smaller alike colored spots as on their front wing.

The underside of the Common Lime butterfly has the similar ground-color that of the upperside, the paler cream-colored marks and noticeably larger. The marks vary from the marks on the upperside in that the front wing has the basal half of the cell and the bottom of wing beneath it with cream-colored lines that unite at the bottom. On the underside of the back wing of the Common Lime Butterfly, the black color at the bottom of the wing and down the dorsal margin centered chiefly with light cream-color. The ocellus in the seventh interspace, the black ground-color and the apex of the cell between postdiscal markings and the medial band in interspaces 2 to 6 are centered with ochraceous, bordered with blue color.

The Antennae of the Common Lime butterfly are dark reddish brown in color, and their thorax, head and abdomen are dusky black in color. The thorax and the head are anteriorly lined with cream-yellow color.

Diet

The Common Lime butterfly is a regular visitor of flowers in backyards, where it feeds on flowers of smaller aromatic plants rather than bigger plants, like the omnipresent Lantana with its abundant blooms. The Common Lime Butterfly can also be seen swarming in the orchards of its food plants.

Behavior

The Common Lime butterfly is a keen mud-peddler and caller of flowers. The Common Lime Butterfly basks by means of its wide-opened wings on bunches of grass, herbs and usually keeps less than a meter over the ground, even on gloomy days. It counts on its swift flight for flee. The Common Lime butterfly is an interesting creature in that it has several modes of flight. In the chilly morning, the flight of the Common Lime Butterfly is sluggish, considering that it is a safe-to- eat and defenseless swallowtail. As the day develops, it flies quickly, directly and low. In the warmer part of the day, it might be found resting on wet patches where it will stay motionless, but for an occasional flap of wings, if not troubled.

Common Lime Butterfly are insects. A Common Lime 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 Common Lime Butterfly comes in four stages, egg, larva "caterpillars", pupa "chrysalis" and adult Butterfly.
A Common Lime Butterfly will attach its eggs to leaves with a special glue.

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 Common Lime 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.

Common Lime Butterfly can see yellow, green, and red. An adult butterfly average life span is from a week to a year
The top flight speed of a Common Lime Butterfly is 12 miles per hour (19 Km/ph) and some moths can fly up to 25 miles per hour (40 Km/ph).
A Common Lime Butterfly is cold-blooded, which means the body temperature is not regulated on its own. A Common Lime Butterfly can't fly or eat if their body temperature is below 82 degrees fah (28 cel). Common Lime Butterfly 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 Common Lime Butterfly has sense organ, on their feet or tarsi, for tasting
The estimate is between 15000 and 20000 different species of butterfly.

A Common Lime Butterfly has a small body, made up of three parts – the head, abdomen and thorax. A Common Lime Butterfly has two large eyes, which are made up of many small parts which are called "compound eyes".
A Common Lime Butterfly has two antenna's on the top of their heads, which they use to smell, hear and feel. A butterfly’s 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 Common Lime 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 Common Lime Butterfly wings are covered with fine dusty like scales. A Common Lime 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.