Troidini

Troidini is a tribe of swallowtail butterflies that consists of some 135 species in 12 genera. Members of this tribe are superlatively large among butterflies (in terms of both wingspan and surface area) and are often strikingly coloured.

Troidini
Ornithoptera goliath female
Byasa alcinous
Scientific classification
Domain:	Eukaryota
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Arthropoda
Class:	Insecta
Order:	Lepidoptera
Family:	Papilionidae
Subfamily:	Papilioninae
Tribe:	Troidini Talbot, 1939
Genera
See text

Genera

The tribe consists of the following genera:

• Atrophaneura
• Battus
• Byasa
• Cressida
• Euryades
• Losaria
• Ornithoptera
• Pachliopta
• Parides
• Pharmacophagus
• Trogonoptera
• Troides

Ecology

Members of this tribe feed on poisonous pipevine plants, typically of the genus Aristolochia, as larvae. As a result, they themselves are poisonous and unpalatable to predators (Pinheiro 1986), like the pipevine swallowtail, and are mimicked by other butterflies (Scott 1986).

Examples of butterflies in Troidini

• 
  Atrophaneura varuna
• 
  Battus philenor
• 
  Byasa polyeuctes
• 
  Cressida cressida
• 
  Euryades corethrus
• 
  Losaria neptunus
• 
  Ornithoptera euphorion
• 
  Pachliopta aristolochiae
• 
  Parides neophilus
• 
  Pharmacophagus antenor
• 
  Trogonoptera brookiana
• 
  Troides magellanus

Citations

• Pinheiro, Carlos E. G. (1996): Palatability and escaping ability in Neotropical butterflies: tests with wild kingbirds (Tyrannus melancholicus, Tyrannidae). Biological Journal of the Linnean Society 59(4): 351–365. HTML abstract
• Scott, James A. (1986): The Butterflies of North America. Stanford University Press. ISBN 0-8047-1205-0