''Delias mysis'', the Union Jack or red-banded Jezebel, is a

butterfly Butterflies are insects in the macrolepidopteran clade Rhopalocera from the Order (biology), order Lepidoptera, which also includes moths. Adult butterflies have large, often brightly coloured wings, and conspicuous, fluttering flight. The ...

in the family

Pieridae The Pieridae are a large family of butterflies with about 76 genera containing about 1,100 species, mostly from tropical Africa and tropical Asia with some varieties in the more northern regions of North America and Eurasia.DeVries P. J. in Levi ...

. It is endemic to northern

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

New Guinea New Guinea (; Hiri Motu Hiri Motu, also known as Police Motu, Pidgin Motu, or just Hiri, is a language of Papua New Guinea, which is spoken in surrounding areas of Port Moresby (Capital of Papua New Guinea). It is a simplified version of ...

and neighbouring islands. The common name is a reference to the flag of the British Empire. The butterfly was given this name, because the patterns and colours on the underside of the wings of the males resembles the flag. The species has a wide variety in colours and patterns, hence a great deal of subspecies have been named. The

wingspan The wingspan (or just span) of a bird or an airplane is the distance from one wingtip to the other wingtip. For example, the Boeing 777–200 has a wingspan of , and a wandering albatross (''Diomedea exulans'') caught in 1965 had a wingspan of ...

is 60–70 mm. The larvae feed on mistletoe species, especially ''

Dendrophthoe glabrescens ''Dendrophthoe glabrescens'', commonly known as orange mistletoe, is a hemiparasitic plant of the mistletoe family Loranthaceae, found in eastern and northern Australia. It flowers from October to January. The flowers are tubular, with a green ba ...

''.

External links

Union Jack info''Delias''
at Markku Savela's ''Lepidoptera and Some Other Life Forms''

mysis ''Mysis'' is a genus of mysid crustaceans in the family Mysidae, distributed mainly in the coastal zone of the Arctic and high boreal seas. Several species also inhabit northern freshwater lakes and the brackish Caspian Sea. Fifteen species are ...

Lepidoptera of New Guinea Butterflies described in 1775 Taxa named by Johan Christian Fabricius Butterflies of Oceania {{Pieridae-stub