Troides darsius

Sri Lankan birdwing
CITES Appendix II (CITES)[1]
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Arthropoda
Class: Insecta
Order: Lepidoptera
Family: Papilionidae
Genus: Troides
Species:
T. darsius
Binomial name
Troides darsius
(Gray, 1852)

Troides darsius, the Sri Lankan birdwing, is a species of birdwing butterfly found in Sri Lanka. It is the largest butterfly on the island and is also the national butterfly of Sri Lanka.[2][3]

Among the largest and most gaudy of the Ceylon Lepidoptera is the great black and yellow butterfly (Ornithoptera darsius, Gray); the upper wings, of which measure six inches (15 cm) across, are of deep velvet black, the lower, ornamented by large particles of satiny yellow, through which the sunlight passes, and few insects can compare with it in beauty, as it hovers over the flowers of the heliotrope, which furnish the favourite food of the perfect fly, although the caterpillar feeds on the aristolochia and the betel leaf and suspends its chrysalis from its drooping tendrils.[4]

As Pompeoptera darsius in Robert Henry Fernando Rippon's Icones Ornithopterorum
  1. ^ "Appendices | CITES". cites.org. Retrieved 2022-01-14.
  2. ^ Rodrigo, Malaka (March 28, 2010). "Sri Lanka names its national butterfly". The Sunday Times (Sri Lanka). Retrieved 2 December 2014.
  3. ^ "National Butterfly". Daily News (Sri Lanka). March 25, 2010. Archived from the original on March 29, 2015. Retrieved December 2, 2014.
  4. ^ Tennant, 1859 Ceylon, Physical, Historical and Topographical