Request help to identify insects or other creatures. Please post the location that the insect you want to identify came from, this will help greatly in species determination.
Hi,
I would like to ask for help with a specimen shown below. I was gifted it as a kid in the mid to late 2000s. It's about 4 or 5 inches (10 to 13 cm) across and did not come with any location/species info. Sorry about the hideous mounting; I didn't know any better and was just trying to keep it from being damaged by sliding around in the case.
Someone elsewhere on the internet suggested it may be Papilio palinurus. Is this ID correct? Also, can anyone advise (informally—not official legal advice I know) on whether I can own this legally in the US? I have done my homework before posting and it looks like P. palinurus is not CITES listed but is protected in Thailand and I of course have no idea where this particular specimen is from or whether there are other laws I need to be considering.
Correct - this is Papilio palinurus, commonly known as the emerald swallowtail. Yes, it's completely legal to own specimens of this species in the US, and it's very common in collections, as well as butterfly houses. It's reared commercially in captivity in large numbers, and ranges over quite a wide area of Southeast Asia.
livingplanet3 wrote: Mon Jun 30, 2025 4:17 am
Correct - this is Papilio palinurus
No it isn't. This is Papilio daedalus from the Philippines, a closely related but separate species. Note on the hindwing that the green band points directly at the 'eye spot' at the anal angle of the hindwing (inner edge below the tip of the abdomen), whereas in Papilio palinurus the green band ends above the 'eye spot'. It seems that Wikipedia doesn't know that there are two separate species in their 'Papilio palinurus'.
This species is not protected and perfectly legal to own in the USA. Also it is worth mentioning that Papilio daedalus from the Philippines is the species often exhibited in butterfly houses. This species is bred in large numbers, whereas the true Papilio palinurus is not.
adamcotton wrote: Mon Jun 30, 2025 9:50 am
No it isn't. This is Papilio daedalus from the Philippines, a closely related but separate species...
Thank you for pointing this out. This likely means that many of the specimens that I've seen labeled as palinurus, including ones in my own collection, are actually probably daedalus.
