Tailed Jay Part 3

Papilionidae; Papilioninae; Leptocircini; Graphium agamemnon agamemnon Linnaeus, 1758. This spotting is the last in a series of three which, if looked at consecutively, tell the story of the amazing metamorphosis which takes place when a Papilionid larva pupates for around 11 days and ecloses as an adult. When the excitement of this morning’s emergence of this butterfly died down and I started arranging my photos for this three-part spotting, I was thinking about what I had witnessed, not just the magical transformation of a caterpillar into a beautiful butterfly, but what I saw when I was taking the above pictures in the minutes following the eclosion i.e. the adult butterfly and what it was doing. The first five pictures were taken indoors where I had been keeping the butterfly for eleven days and the last was when I took it out to the garden so that it could fly off when it was ready. So, let’s look at the photos. I have the advantage of having seen what was happening as I was clicking away on the shutter button. So, I will give you my thoughts picture by picture: #1 The butterfly is slightly lower than the top of the leaf and I feel sure that I saw it slip down a little and it put its left front leg out to try and grab the twig (you can check this first picture against the last photo in the eclosion part of this trilogy of spottings). #2 & #3 It seems to be struggling to establish a grip on the shiny leaf surface. It looked a bit like it was doing a Michael Jackson walk – the legs appeared to be going forwards, but the butterfly was going backwards. #4 The leaf was now flapping up and down under the increasingly desperate scrambling of the butterfly and I think he managed to get a hold on the twig when the leaf got close enough. #5 It now has a secure grasp of the twig and has successfully abandoned the leaf. So, I carefully carried it out to the garden so that it could fly off as soon as its wings were stiffened and that was where I took the last photo.