Brian Fletcher O. paradisea paradisea photos

[nomad]

In a recent thread, I provided some information on O. paradisea paradisea because the status of this rare butterfly was open to some doubt. I also mentioned a fine paper on the life history of the nominate O. paradisea by Brian Fletcher from Australia who has studied this butterfly in the Kau protected rainforest area, near Madang in 1996. This paper is accompanied by colour photographs of the adults and those of the early stages.
Here is a better link to this paper.
www.richmondbirdwing.org.au/images/ParadiseBirdwing.PDF

Recently Brian has generously sent me a further series of his original photographs of the nominate O. paradisea of which, I believe, have never been shown before. These beautiful and interesting photographs may be of some interest to birdwing enthusiasts and Brian has kindly agreed for me to have these shown on the forum.

Brian has also provided the following information on the adult O. paradisea at the Kau reserve. He mentions, that the females were seen more frequently than males, as they flew relatively low and slowly when searching for the larval foodplant. Males usually were seen high up in the canopy. Altogether he saw 6-8 females in the wild but only 3 males, in addition to the ones he reared from pupae and he released these back into their rainforest habitat. He does not remember seeing any adults feeding on flowers but says they obviously do so.

Brian has also seen O. alexandrae and O. goliath in Papua. O. tithonus and O. chimaera in West New Guinea and O. croesus in Halmahera.

These photographs are the copyright of Brian Fletcher.

Photograph below, Brian with a freshly emerged male of O. paradisea paradisea at the Kau reserve.

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[nomad]

The egg of O. paradisea paradisea

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Second instar larva of O. paradisea paradisea on leaf of foodplant, notice how the leaf has been eaten from the tip backwards, which is typical for this species.

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Ulai, a elder of the Ditapa Clan with the hostplant of O. paradisea at Kau, Paraisolochia schlechteri

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The larva of O. paradisea paradisea

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Ulai with the full grown larva of O. paradisea paradisea

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The pupa of O. paradisea paradisea

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Freshly emerged female of O. paradisea paradisea

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Pristine female of O. paradisea paradisea

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Brian with female of O. paradisea paradisea

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The male of O. paradisea paradisea

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and lastly another photograph of the magnificent male of O. paradisea paradisea.

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[nomad]

Sometimes it is nice to know something about the man behind the photographs. Dr Brian Fletcher was born in Derbyshire in the U. K. He became interested in all types of wildlife at a early age, but particularly in moths, and spent many evenings in his early teens collecting them in his garden using a M. V. moth trap and searching for them in the local woods and nearby moorland. He later completed a degree in Zoology, and a PHD on the daily rhythms in beetles at the University of Birmingham. He got a job as a research scientist at the Entomological department at Sydney University and moved to Australia in 1966.

Most of his work was the research on the ecology and behavior of the Queensland Fruit Fly Bactrocera tryoni, a serious pest of most types of fruit in Australia, PNG, Fiji, Tonga and Western Samoa. He mentions that he was a hands on biologist and as his profession became more and more desk bound he retired in 1994. This enabled him to spend more time in countries he was particularly interested in visiting. One of these was Papua New Guinea where he researched the Fruit Fly Fauna there, and where the opportunity came to study Ornithoptera paradisea, because seeing this butterfly in the wild, was a dream he had from childhood when he first saw it in a ' Illustrated Encyclopedia'. Later he took another job in Bhutan funded by the Australian Government studying Fruit Fly pest of Mandarins, one of this countries main cash crops. He now is lucky enough to travel a lot to different parts of the world to see the sites, culture and wildlife. He still finds New Guinea a fascinating Island, certainly for birds and butterflies and when he goes there he always tries to see as much as the wildlife as possible. This also includes plants, particularly Orchids.

Peter.

[wollastoni]

Interesting, thank you.

About your last comment, bird are for sure wonderful in New Guinea, but they are far more difficult to see than in Europe...
In 2009, I spent 5 weeks in the jungle and I saw maybe 4 or 5 birds only...

My understanding is birds are very cautious with human beings there, as locals still hunt them with arrows.

[nomad]

Hi Wollastoni, for sure the birds of New Guinea are hunted, especially the beautiful Birds of Paradise. People such as Brian would have a array of local guides in New Guinea which help him on his Ornithological endeavors. Many go with organized parties and these people get to some pretty remote places. See the link below for the enormous range of birds that may be seen.
www.surfbirds.com/trip_report.php?id=1536

Bear in mind these guys are mainly interested in birds and not butterflies but those like Brian who also have a interest in lepidoptera, would and does see some pretty amazing species.

The people who went on the above tour even manged to get to the Huon Peninsular.

Peter.