Appearance
Females have a wingspan reaching of up to 150 mm, males - 125 mm. A closely allied species, the New Guinea or Priam's Birdwing reaches 19 cm and is the largest butterfly species found in Australia, but it is not endemic.Males have a predominately black upper wing with emerald green flashes, however the female lacks the green coloring, having a plain black upper wing with white patches. The female is the larger of the two sexes. The larvae or caterpillars of this species breed on several species of pipe vine, including ''Aristolochia tagala'' and ''Pararistolochia deltantha''. The latter species is more commonly used at altitude, with ''A. tagala'' used at sea level.
Distribution
Cairns Birdwings are found southwards from Mount Webb and Cooktown to Mackay in Queensland. Its favoured habitat is primary rainforest, although the species will breed readily in a home garden if the correct larval host plants are grown.The leaves of the introduced Dutchman's Pipe will kill the larvae of this species and several other swallowtail butterflies in Australia. It should not be planted anywhere in Queensland, New South Wales or the Northern Territory. Adults are freely attracted to flowers, including ''Lantana'', ''Hibiscus'' and ''Bougainvillea''. The species is abundant throughout its range and is not threatened.
References:
Some text fragments are auto parsed from Wikipedia.
