''Papilio nobilis'', the noble swallowtail, is a
butterfly
Butterflies are insects in the macrolepidopteran clade Rhopalocera from the order Lepidoptera, which also includes moths. Adult butterflies have large, often brightly coloured wings, and conspicuous, fluttering flight. The group comprise ...
of the family
Papilionidae
Swallowtail butterflies are large, colorful butterflies in the family Papilionidae, and include over 550 species. Though the majority are tropical, members of the family inhabit every continent except Antarctica. The family includes the larg ...
. It is found in
Africa
Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area ...
.
The larvae feed on ''
Warburgia ugandensis''.
Taxonomy
''Papilio nobilis'' is a member of the ''oribazus''
species group
In biology, a species complex is a group of closely related organisms that are so similar in appearance and other features that the boundaries between them are often unclear. The taxa in the complex may be able to hybridize readily with each oth ...
. The
clade members are:
*''
Papilio oribazus''
Boisduval, 1836
*''
Papilio epiphorbas''
Boisduval, 1833
*''Papilio nobilis''
Rogenhofer, 1891
Subspecies
*''Papilio nobilis nobilis'' (highlands of Kenya, Lake Victoria, eastern Uganda, north-western Tanzania)
*''Papilio nobilis didingensis''
Carpenter, 1928 (southern Sudan)
*''Papilio nobilis crippsianus''
Stoneham, 1936 . (Congo Republic, western Uganda, western Kenya, north-western Tanzania)
*''Papilio nobilis mpanda''
Kielland, 1990[ Kielland, J. 1990 ''Butterflies of Tanzania.'' Hill House, Melbourne and London: 1-363] (western Tanzania)
References
External links
*
*
*
Butterflies described in 1891
nobilis
''Nobilis'' is a contemporary fantasy tabletop role-playing game created by Jenna K. Moran, writing under the name R. Sean Borgstrom. The player characters are "Sovereign Powers" called ''the Nobilis''; each Noble is the personification of an ...
Butterflies of Africa
Taxa named by Alois Friedrich Rogenhofer
{{papilionidae-stub