♀ Papilio ​polyxenes asterius × ♂ Papilio zelicaon Hybrid Ecloses Crippled

Our male ♀ Papilio ​polyxenes asterius × ♂ Papilio zelicaon hybrid finally eclosed, but unfortunately did not expand its wings.

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We are extremely disappointed to say that our ♀ Papilio ​polyxenes asterius × ♂ Papilio zelicaon hybrid male eclosed today but could not expand its wings fully. We don't know why it became crippled or if hybridization could have caused it, though usually the males of machaon group hybrids should have no problem eclosing. Despite the crumpled wings, it is still possible to see the body and the general pattern on the wings. We tried to get shots from many different aspects, shown below.

From what we can see, the hybrid appears to resemble polyxenes more so than zelicaon. Both fore and hind wings have a considerable amount of yellow, but it is hard to say exactly how much since they are not fully expanded. The males of the parent species both have yellow on their wings, with zelicaon having more. The hybrid definitely seems to have less yellow than a zelicaon would have and looks more like polyxenes. However, perhaps if the wings were expanded, there would actually be a lot more yellow than it looks, and perhaps some of the grayish looking parts could expand to a yellow-gray, intermediate of the parent species. We do not know.

As for the ventral aspect the wings, they again seem to resemble polyxenes more, with the forewing having only small amounts of yellow and the hindwing having orange spots. However, probably the orange spots on the hind wing will expand into a pale yellow orange based on how light they are even when not expanded, which would be intermediate of the parent species, since polyxenes' spots are well-defined and dark, while zelicaon only have traces of orange.

Looking at the body - mainly the abdomen, the hybrid again resembles polyxenes slightly more. In the parent species, polyxenes has several rows of yellow spots down the length of its abdomen while in zelicaon, it is a single solid yellow stripe on each side with a poorly defined solid stripe on the ventral side. The hybrid very clearly has rows of spots rather than solid yellow, but the spots appear to be slightly larger and more rectangular and "dash" like than than in polyxenes. The head and thorax region looks more polyxenes as well. In polyxenes, there are broken pale yellow spots on the thorax while in zelicaon it is two solid dark yellow stripes. The hybrid has spots rather than solid stripes, but they appear slightly thicker and darker than normally would be in polyxenes. 

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​Authors
Alan Liang

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