Papilio zelicaon and rutulus Meddlings. . .

Anise (Papilio zelicaon) and western tiger (Papilio rutulus) swallowtails can be hand-paired but copulation is evidently unsuccessful.  

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Just when we thought that the western tiger swallowtails (Papilio rutulus) were completely out for the season, we found a newly eclosed male nectaring at our neighbor's bougainvillea (Bougainvillea), a flower that seems quite popular with swallowtails. On of the two rutulus pupae that we just reared is clearly diapausing whereas the other one seemed to be days away from eclosion when we cracked it open and found a dried out butterfly. Any sort of flight in August is clearly partial second from late eclosers in the spring.

This male would have been perfect if the pupa we had didn't die because it was a female. In fact, before we found out that it was dead, we had went out on multiple occasions to search for a male to hand-pair it with. 

I suppose, this is slightly uncalled for, but out of curiosity, we attempted to pair the male with a female anise (Papilio zelicaon). It took a minute or so, but the male quickly found a way to clasp on even though it appeared to be much to large for the female. After a few moments, the male calmed down and was holding on tightly enough that they could not be broken. This was easier to execute than some pairings between two P. zelicaon! The female, on the other hand, evidently sensed that something was wrong and kept trying to break free. We don't usually see uncooperative females when they are paired with the correct species. 

When they separated (after what was an appropriate amount of time), we left the female by herself in a dark place for a day before setting her out to see if she would lay eggs. After three days of no activity, we concluded that the hand-pairing was completely unsuccessful. We have seen females lay heaps of infertile eggs as long as the pairing actually happened (but the male was no good), but no eggs at all often indicates that the female is virgin. 

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Authors
Brian Liang

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