Troidini
Appearance
Troidini | |
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Ornithoptera goliath female | |
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Tribe: | Troidini
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Troidini is a tribe of swallowtail butterflies that consists of some 135 species in 12 genera.
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), and are mimicked by other butterflies (Scott 1986).
References
- Pinheiro, Carlos E. G. (1996): Palatability and escaping ability in Neotropical butterflies: tests with wild kingbirds (Tyrannus melancholicus, Tyrannidae). Biol. J. Linn. Soc. 59(4): 351–365. HTML abstract
- Scott, James A. (1986): The Butterflies of North America. Stanford University Press. ISBN 0-8047-1205-0