AJP photographed this Nice Mormon Butterfly (Papilio mormon) within the backyard in Might. He has seen giant numbers of this massive butterfly (round 5 inches -125 mm) this yr.
Females are extremely polymorphic. In some elements of southern Asia the females mimic poisonous butterflies. The truth that the males have the selection of quite a few totally different feminine types inside an space appears to have been chargeable for their widespread identify of ‘mormon’.
Nice Mormons figured in one of many key papers on mimicry and its evolution. Ian Thornton (1926-2002) then Reader in Zoology within the College of Hong Kong despatched specimens to Liverpool for breeding experiments and was a co-author of the paper with Sir Cyril Clarke (1907-2000) and Philip Shepherd (1921-1976) which was printed in Transactions of the Royal Society in 1968.
I solely found that Ian Thornton had been concerned in work on the genetics of the Nice Mormon when scripting this notice. I then recalled one thing odd concerning the division of zoology in these days. I by no means recall a single inner seminar. Exterior guests and talks by a number of distinguished scientists calling in Hong Kong, sure; however talks by workers and PhD college students on what they had been doing, no.
Clarke CA, Sheppard PM, Thornton IWB. 1968. The genetics of the mimetic butterfly Papilio memnon L.. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B. 254 37–89. doi:10.1098rstb.1968.0013