Cairns+Birdwing+Butterfly+by+Caitlin+H

Cairns Birdwing Butterfly

__Introduction__

There Scientific Name is Ornithoptera Priamus Euphorion .The Cairns birdwing butterfly was found in 1852 .The Cairns Birdwing Butterfly is an Arthropod and is also an insect.

__Habitat__ The Cairns Birdwing Butterfly lives in tropical rainforests between Mackay and Cooktown in north – east Queensland, Australia. You would mostly found then in the Coropy part of the rainforests. They are attracted to the native vine the Dutchman's Pipe (Aristolochia tagala). Ironically, a different species of this same vine (Aristolochia elegans) are poisonous to the Cairns Birdwing.

They live happily in the rainforest, but have also been noted to live in areas without such vegetation such as Magnetic Island.

__Anatomy__

The Cairns Birdwing Butterfly has three body part called the head, thorax and abdomen. It has two pairs of wings attach to the thorax. It has six legs are attached to the thorax and the abdomen. __Life Cycle__

Butterflies start a life as an egg which hatches into a caterpillar [an eating machine!] When it has eaten enough food the caterpillar becomes a pupa by wrapping it self in a special coating. This protects the pupa while it changes it skin. The skin of the pupa cracks open and the winged and an Butterfly appears. __Breeding__


 * The female Birdwing Butterfly lays her eggs on the leaves of the Aristolochia vines. It sometimes sets a territory near this vigorous large leaf vine. When the caterpillar of the Birdwing butterfly are almost ready to pupate they ringbark the vines on which they are feeding. The large caterpillar therefore gets a more nutritious meal with less water before pupation.
 * Females are often mated as soon as they emerge from their cocoons and it is not unusual for 2 or 3 males to be seen attempting to copulate with one female at once.
 * The males do an early morning patrol of their search of emerging females.
 * __Predators[[image:http://bugguide.net/images/raw/GZ7LBZ8LUZ8L9ZIL1Z2HBZ4LZRMLNZNHWZ2HZRML9ZUHDHQL8Z0L6ZGLYHIH4ZXLAZGLVZ6HFHWH.jpg width="196" height="139"]]__ **

Butterflies have a variety of predators like ants, wasps, parasitic flies, birds, snakes, toads, rats, lizards and monkeys. Butterflies are either good tasting or bad tasting; funny as it seems; this is the best way one can categorise them from the viewpoint of their predators. A butterfly which tastes good is usually consumed by predators like lizards, snakes and birds. A bad tasting butterfly is shunned away by predators due to its peculiarly bad taste. Bad tasting butterflies are known to exude toxins that sicken the predators. The ironical thing is bad tasting butterflies look colourful and attractive. So after consuming a bad tasting butterfly, the predator understands that it should refrain from killing any of the 'colourful-winged' butterflies the next time around. In other words, one bad tasting butterfly ends up sacrificing itself for the good of many other counterparts.

__Did You Know ?__

The Cairns Birdwing Butterfly has three types of it blue and black [ plain ] green and black [ male ] and the female is the yellow ,white black and red [ female ] TheCairns Birdwing Butterfly is one of the LARGEST female Australian Butterflies it can go up to 16 cm wing to wing. The male is smaller then the female. Only the males have streaks of emerald green across their pointed wings.

__Conclusion__ Thank you for reading my information report hope you enjoyed it and learnt something please come again to 4 w‘s wiki. The Cairns Birdwing Butterfly flies away and comes back another day.