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Sticker of Queen Alexandra's birdwing
Bug card No. 1092 of 1,500

Queen Alexandra's birdwing

Ornithoptera alexandrae
Eats: Nectar and pollenButterfliesRainforests and jungles6 legs

Queen Alexandra's birdwing is the biggest butterfly in the world. A big female's wings are wider than a dinner plate. The female is brown with white marks, while the smaller male is shiny blue-green with a bright yellow body.

Lives in
Only a small patch of rainforest in eastern Papua New Guinea
Length
8 cm (3.1 in)
a big female
Wingspan
16 to 28 cm (6.3 to 11 in)
Top speed
about 32 km/h (20 mph)
Flying, estimate
Can it hurt you?
Harmless
Harmless to people. Its caterpillar stores poison from its food plant, which keeps animals from eating it.
What does it eat?
The butterflies drink nectar from big flowers like hibiscus. The caterpillar first eats its own eggshell, then munches pipe vine leaves.
For real!Photo of Queen Alexandra's birdwing
Picture by MP_-_Ornithoptera_alexandrae_3.jpg : Mark Pellegrini (Raul654) Ornithoptera_alexandrae_nash.jpg : Robert Nash <robert.nash at magni.org.uk> derivative work: Bru. CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

How big is it?

How long is it?

Queen Alexandra's birdwing about 8 cm long (3.1 in)A toy building brick about 3.2 cm (1.3 in)A crayon about 9 cm (3.5 in)A banana about 18 cm (7.1 in)

How wide are its wings?

Queen Alexandra's birdwing wings about 28 cm tip to tip (11 in)A crayon about 9 cm (3.5 in)A banana about 18 cm (7.1 in)A house cat about 50 cm (20 in)
as long as 2.5 toy building bricks in a rowwings as wide as a dinner platecould fly across a whole football pitch in 12 secondsmoves 110 times its own body length every second

How big is Queen Alexandra's birdwing compared to YOU?

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How fast is it?

cool stuff

Fun facts

1

It was named in 1907 after Alexandra, who was queen of Britain at the time.

2

A female can lay more than 240 eggs in her life.

3

The caterpillar is black with red bumps and a cream band around its middle, like a little saddle.

4

It comes out of its pupa early in the morning, when the air is damp, so its huge wings do not dry out before they open.

5

It is so rare that buying or selling it between countries is against the law.

you asked

Most asked questions about Queen Alexandra's birdwing

?What is the biggest butterfly in the world?

Queen Alexandra's birdwing. A female's wings can be 25 to 28 centimetres across.

?Where does Queen Alexandra's birdwing live?

Only in a small area of rainforest in Papua New Guinea.

?Why is it endangered?

Its rainforest is being cut down for oil palm farms, and it lives in only one small place.

For bug experts

Scientific name
Ornithoptera alexandrae
Named by
Rothschild, 1907
Group
Butterflies
Family
Papilionidae
Classification
Insecta > Lepidoptera > Papilionidae
Lives on
Australia and Oceania

Where the facts come from

  1. Queen Alexandra's birdwing (Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0): what it looks like, where it lives, what it eats, sizes and fun facts, retold in simple words.
  2. Picture by MP_-_Ornithoptera_alexandrae_3.jpg : Mark Pellegrini (Raul654) Ornithoptera_alexandrae_nash.jpg : Robert Nash <robert.nash at magni.org.uk> derivative work: Bru. CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons. The round sticker of this bug is cut from the same picture.

If we got something wrong, sorry, we are bug fans, not a science journal. Tell us at hello@bugwiki.app and we will fix it.

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