Queen Alexandra bird butterfly
| Queen Alexandra bird butterfly | ||||||||||||
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Queen Alexandra bird ( Ornithoptera alexandrae ), male |
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| Ornithoptera alexandrae | ||||||||||||
| ( Rothschild , 1907) |
The Queen Alexandra Bird Butterfly ( Ornithoptera alexandrae ) is a butterfly from the family of the Knight Butterfly (Papilionidae). The females of this species are considered to be the butterflies with the largest wingspan among the butterflies . The species was discovered in 1906 by Albert Stewart Meek in Papua New Guinea and described by Walter Rothschild in 1907 . It is named after Queen Alexandra , wife of King Edward VII of England.
features
The females reach a wingspan of up to 28 centimeters and a body length of 7.5 centimeters. The males are slightly smaller and reach a wingspan of about 20 centimeters.
Danger
Due to its imposing appearance, the Queen Alexandra bird butterfly is one of the most sought-after and most expensive collector's items. It is classified as “endangered” by the IUCN and is listed in Appendix I of the CITES Agreement. This means that trading in wild-caught fish is prohibited. Furthermore, the caterpillars are dependent on a single forage plant, which is increasingly declining in its population due to the destruction of the habitat - in particular due to the creation of oil palm plantations .
Occurrence in culture
From a literary point of view, the Queen Alexandra bird butterfly and its fictional discovery in the 19th century plays a role in Brief Notes on Tropical Butterflies by US writer John Murray, selected by US writer Joyce Carol Oates for the Best New American Voices 2002 .
In the novel Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency by Douglas Adams a protagonist compares his memory with the Queen Alexandra's Birdwing, "colorful, happy hopping back and forth, and now almost completely extinguished." ( "Reg, as he insisted on being called, had a memory that he himself had once compared to the Queen Alexandra Birdwing Butterfly in that it was colorful, flitted prettily hither and thither, and was now, alas, almost completely extinct." ) The translator of the German edition was not aware that it was a butterfly and attributed the said properties to a certain "Queen Alexandra Birdwing Butterfly".
Individual evidence
literature
- SM Wells, RM Pyle & NM Collins: IUCN Invertebrate Red Data Book. International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources, 1983, ISBN 2-88032-602-8 .
Web links
- Ornithoptera alexandrae in the Red List of Threatened Species of the IUCN 2008. Posted by: Gimenez Dixon, 1996. Accessed on 24 February, 2009.
- www.butterflycorner.net (German / English)
- Kappeler - Queen Alexandra Bird Butterfly
- Entry at Nagypal.net (English)