Albany Updates (8/23/17): ♀ Papilio polyxenes × ♂ zelicaon Adult Male

We have reports that a hybrid ♀ Papilio ​polyxenes asterius × ♂ zelicaon male has mysteriously appeared in our tank. 

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Before we left, we had thought that all of our hybrid pupae had already eclosed, except for the females that appeared to be in diapause. There should have also been exactly one pure Papilio polyxenes asterius male that had not yet eclosed (the one that we kept outside for photos and was exposed to cooler on average temperatures). Therefore, it struck us as quite odd when our mother mentioned that there were two "black" swallowtails that had emerged from our pupae tub when she checked. We told her to send us a picture and, as we suspected, one of the two very clearly appears to be a hybrid male. A while back, we had mysteriously lost a male hybrid pupa that we thought happened when we accidentally dropped a petri dish containing a few but now it is more likely that we got it mixed with the P. zelicaon pupae. 

Anyway, it is absolutely amazing that we finally have a hybrid specimen that is in good enough shape to really be looked at. (It is the individual in the far left of the photograph.) Based on our previous observations of the pharate pupae and the crippled males, we had already gotten the sense that the black from the polyxenes is quite dominant over the yellow but that many of the other traits were zelicaon-like. This new hyrbid basically confirms many things that we wrote before, although it can be hard to assess certain traits that are found on parts we can't see in the photo such as the hindwings and the abdomen. Because this is such a valuable specimen, we have asked our mother to pin it up so that we can get a closer look at it in real life should should we come back home during a break so perhaps we will make another post on it in the future. 

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Authors
Brian Liang

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