Strange Papilio machaon

[yorky]

Bought from an insect fair, data says Sweden, any thoughts? 

[trehopr1]

That is indeed a curious specimen. Exceptional amount of yellow !

The reduced blue + red cells of the hind wings
definitely bring attention to it.

I'd like to know myself if this is a subspecies
unique to Sweden or a possible abb (?) or a breeder creation.

[Adam Cotton]

Sweden is the type locality of nominate Papilio machaon, not surprising since it was described by Linnaeus, but this specimen is not typical in appearance.

Can you post an underside photo? Normal Swedish machaon is different to gorganus on the underside.

Adam.

[yorky]

Can't take proper pictures at the moment, digital camera is now fubar

[leptraps]

FUBAR: Now there is a word I have not heard in 60+ years. It is an acronym.

"F--ked Up Beyond All Repair"

[gaspipe]

Feb 7, 2021 10:00:36 GMT -8 leptraps said:

FUBAR: Now there is a word I have not heard in 60+ years. It is an acronym.

"F--ked Up Beyond All Repair"

Or “Recognition” 😆

[leptraps]

FUBAR. No recognition. Just FUBAR....

F--k up Beyond All Repair!!

[Adam Cotton]

Here's a snapshot of the undersides of a male of ssp. machaon from Sweden and gorganus from Germany:



Note particularly the narrower hindwing postdiscal band of ssp. machaon.

Adam.

[yorky]

Yes they are a lot more narrow.

[Adam Cotton]

I just uploaded photos of my 23 drawers of Papilio machaon here:

collector-secret.proboards.com/thread/428/subspecies-papilio-machaon?page=4

The photo quality is not ideal, but the area each specimen comes from is indicated in the photos. I hope people will find them interesting

Here is the one with Swedish specimens:


Adam.

[eurytides]

Adam, do you consider joanae a separate species? What about brevicauda?

[Adam Cotton]

P. joanae does seem to be different to machaon, and maybe some more upcoming analyses will shed further light on it and on brevicauda. It is very strange that joanae is restricted to a small area.

I crossed European machaon with brevicauda and got an interesting result. All the male offspring emerged a few weeks after pupation but all the females went into diapause and didn't emerge until the next year. Technically since the offspring were physically unable to produce an F2 generation then they should be regarded as separate species. I was able to cross a male hybrid with a female of machaon hippocrates from Japan and that produced many offspring. A sib-cross of these produced very few fertile eggs, whereas using a male hybrid backcrossed to female hippocrates again produced many offspring. It seems thqat the male hybrids are fertile but the females are not.

Hybrids between European machaon and hippocrates produced many offspring (crossing parents both ways) but there was some reduction in fertility of the hybrids when making an F2 generation, however nowhere near the drop in fertility of the crosses I made involving brevicauda. A back cross of machaon x hippocrates with hippocrates also produced high fertility.

Adam.

[Adam Cotton]

Talking about Swedish machaon and breeding, it was very interesting to find that when I bred that here in Chiang Mai at 38C, much hotter than the larvae would experience in nature, there was absolutely no effect on phenotype due to the high temperature. I was wondering whether the offspring would look more like southern European machaon, but there was no effect on appearance at all. This shows that phenotype is mainly genetically controlled rather than due to environment. I also found that other subspecies retained their normal appearance as well, suggesting that each population is genetically distinct, at least with respect to appearance.

Adam.

[kevinkk]

This is exactly what I like about the forum, reading topics like this one, from people with much more experience and knowledge than
I do about entomology.
I'd need to be younger, and my passport would need many more stamps.

[yorky]

Your specimens from Sweden do have much narrower bands but not as thin as on my specimen.