Australia's biggest butterfly
A female's wings can span fifteen centimetres or more, wider than a man's hand.
Tropical north · Butterflies and moths
Cairns birdwing
Ornithoptera euphorion
A huge butterfly. The male is black and emerald green with golden hindwings. The female is larger, black and white.
- Size
- Females up to 15cm across: Australia's biggest butterfly
- Look for it
- All year round
- Where
- Rainforest edges and gardens of north Queensland
Sails after you on slow, wide wings. Move your pointer and see.
When to look
Birdwing
Good to know
Six things about the birdwing
Named after birds
Birdwings are so large, and fly so strongly, that early collectors likened them to birds.
A poisonous vine
The caterpillars eat a native vine whose poison they store in their bodies, which makes them unpleasant to eat.
Red spines mean poison
The caterpillar is dark with long red-orange spines, a warning to birds.
A deadly lookalike
A garden vine from South America fools females into laying eggs on it. The leaves kill the caterpillars.
A golden chrysalis
The chrysalis is green or golden yellow and hangs like a curled leaf, held by a thread of silk.
The real thing
Photos of the birdwing
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Photos are from Wikimedia Commons, used under the free licences shown. They have been resized, and cropped where they appear in link previews.
How to spot one
Look round flowering shrubs in gardens near the rainforest. The slow, gliding flight and sheer size make it obvious.
How to help
People in Queensland are pulling out the lookalike Dutchman's pipe vine and planting the native one. Butterfly numbers have risen where they do.
Keep going
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