Ulysses butterfly
The Ulysses butterfly is a big swallowtail with wings of shining electric blue. When it lands and folds its wings, the plain brown underside hides it. When it flies, people can see its blue flashes from hundreds of metres away.
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Fun facts
Its blue colour is not paint. It comes from tiny shapes on its scales that bounce the light back as blue.
Boy butterflies like blue so much that they sometimes fly towards blue things, thinking they are girls.
It is a symbol for tourism in Queensland, Australia.
Mothers like to lay their eggs on small trees no taller than 2 metres.
Planting doughwood trees has helped more of these butterflies to survive.
Most asked questions about Ulysses butterfly
?Why is the Ulysses butterfly so blue?
The blue comes from tiny structures on its wing scales that reflect blue light.
?Where does the Ulysses butterfly live?
In rainforests and gardens of northern Australia, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands.
?How big is the Ulysses butterfly?
Its wings are about 10 to 14 centimetres across.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Papilio ulysses
- Group
- Butterflies
- Family
- Papilionidae
- Classification
- Insecta > Lepidoptera > Papilionidae
- Lives on
- Australia and Oceania, Asia
- Also known as
- Blue mountain swallowtail, Blue emperor
Where the facts come from
- Papilio ulysses (Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0): what it looks like, where it lives, what it eats, sizes and fun facts, retold in simple words.
- Picture by Willem van Aken, CSIRO. CC BY 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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