Posts Tagged ‘new guinea’

Kookaburras are very well known for their strange cry because it sounds somewhat like very loud and echoing laughter. Kookaburras are a type of big kingfishers. They can live up to 20 years old. Read the rest of this entry »

(Ornithoptera alexandrae)

Physical characteristics
The Queen Alexandra’s Birdwing Butterfly is the worlds largest butterfly. The wingspan of this giant beauty can be as much as ten to twelve inches across.
It was named by Lord Walter Rothschild to honor Queen Alexandria of the United Kingdom.

The female of the Queen Alexandra’s Birdwing are quite a bit bigger than the males. They have much broader and rounder wings as well. They can reach sizes of twelve inches while the males will normally be about ten. Their bodies alone are about three inches long.

The female of the species is brown with white marks on her wings while the males are smaller, have brown wings, with gorgeous green and blue marks on them. They also have a very brightly colored yellow belly.

What they Eat:
The Birdwing Butterfly typicallly feeds on flowers or the nectar of them. The juveniles eat a toxic plant called the pipevine plant, or the Aristolochia schlecteri. This is what the eggs are laid on and what the caterpillars hatch out onto.

Habitat and Location
The Queen Alexandrias Birdwing has only about 120 square miles of habitat in which they are found. This is located in New Guinea, near Papua. The birdwing is very abundant in this area, and is frequently seen but because the area is so small and is being threatened by habitat destruction, it is considered threatened by the IUCN.

Breeding
The female will have about 25 eggs during their entire life. Normally these eggs will take about six weeks to hatch. They are pupae for about a month or a bit more before emerging as butterflies. They usually come out of the pupa early in the morning while the humidity is very high. This is because the wings cannot dry out before they are fully expanded. Adult Birdwings will live about three months to five months. They have very few predators. One such predator is the Orb Weaving spider.

Queen Alexandria’s Birdwing Butterfly – Worlds Largest Butterfly – World Of Nature