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Scientific name
Agehana maraho (Shiraki & Sonan, 1934)
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Chinese name 寬尾鳳蝶、闊尾鳳蝶
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English name
Broad-tailed Swallowtail |
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Classification 鳳蝶科(Papilionidae)，鳳蝶亞科(Papilioninae)，鳳蝶族(Papilionini)
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Diagnosis
Wingspan 15-20cm. Head, thorax and abdomen black; termen
of forewing slightly arched, hindwing somewhat rectangular
with undulate margin and broad tails consist of two veins;
forewing black in ground colour either on upperside or
underside; hindwings having a large discoidal white area
and six lunate red patterns along hind margin. |
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Distribution
This species is presently only known from Taiwan. According
to Yang & Tzen (1992), this species is scattered around
the whole island but restricted to several localities,
e.g. Kuanwu Major Wildlife Habitat for Broad-tailed Swallowtail,
Chi-Lan, Taipingshan, Jia-Yng and Pu-lu-shih. A possible
population from Alishan area has ever been expected though
no any specimen could be traced. |
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Habitat and Ecology
This species is exclusively monophagous on Sassafras randaiensis
(Lauraceae)(Liao, 1967, 1969; Hamano, 1987; Lin, 1994,
Lee & Wang, 1997) and the distributional pattern is
strongly correlated to that of the Sassafras pure stands.
The tree of Sassafras usually grow along sloppy face of
mountainous areas at 800-2000m. According to collecting
data, the adults start to appear from April and end in
August, probably univoltine or bivoltine. The eggs are
exclusively laid on the medial vein of the mature or young
leaves, but never on the young shoots of the hostplant.
The larvae almost rest on the medial vein on the upper
surface. Younger instars have bird-dropping mimic looking
while the final instar is green with two large orbicular
eye-spots on metathorax, and two semi-horizontal black
bands extending from the first abdominal segment to the
fourth abdominal segment. The male adults could be found
along unpolluted and cryptic streams at quite low elevation,
which is far from where their hostplant grow, while the
females are more mountainous with slower flight above
canopy or margin of forest. The known nectar sources are
belonging to the plant families of Verbenaceae, Saxifragaceae
and Styracaceae. For more details about biology and ecology
see Liao (1967), Yang (1967), Yang & Tzen (1992, 1996)
and Lin (1994). |
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Threats and Conservation Status
Since it was described, this species has been faced tremendous
threats from illegal collecting which serves the demand
from overseas and domestic specimen trading. Besides collecting
the adults, egg-collecting could be fatal and influenced
for the growth of young host trees. It is not clear if
habitat destruction has been a key factor to the decline
of the population since Sassafras is actually a pioneer
species in drier and uncovered sloppy mountainous areas.
In addition, this butterfly is also protected by the European
Union. |
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Remarks
The sibling Agehana elwesi (Leech) from China could be
distinguished from the Taiwanese species by the darker
red patches and narrower white spots on the hindwings,
more elongated hindwing tails and wider host utilization.
Some authors treat these two species as two allopatric
subspecies, but their relationships still need more investigations.
In addition, some authors tend to place this species in
Papilio in a broad sense. |
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