''Papilio woodfordi'', the Woodford's swallowtail, is a

swallowtail butterfly 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 large ...

of the

Papilioninae Papilioninae is a subfamily of the butterfly family Papilionidae. Papilioninae are found worldwide, but most species are distributed in the tropics. There are roughly 480 species, of which 27 occur in North America. Tribes This subfamily consis ...

subfamily. It is found on various islands in the

Pacific Ocean The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the continen ...

(see Subspecies section). 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 . The larvae feed on ''

Citrus ''Citrus'' is a genus of flowering plant, flowering trees and shrubs in the rue family, Rutaceae. Plants in the genus produce citrus fruits, including important crops such as Orange (fruit), oranges, Lemon, lemons, grapefruits, pomelos, and lim ...

'' species.

Subspecies

*''Papilio woodfordi woodfordi'' (Bougainville, Shortland Islands) *''Papilio woodfordi choiseuli'' Rothschild (Choiseul) *''Papilio woodfordi laarchus'' Godman & Salvin, 1888 (New Georgia Group) *''Papilio woodfordi ariel'' Grose-Smith, 1889 (Santa Isabel)

Taxonomy

''Papilio woodfordi'' is a member of the ''aegeus''

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 A clade (), also known as a monophyletic group or natural group, is a group of organisms that are monophyletic – that is, composed of a common ancestor and all its lineal descendants – on a phylogenetic tree. Rather than the English term, ...

members are: *''Papilio aegeus'' Donovan, 1805 *''Papilio bridgei'' Mathew, 1886 ** ? ''Papilio erskinei'' Mathew, 1886 *''Papilio gambrisius'' Cramer, [1777] *''Papilio inopinatus'' Butler, 1883 *''Papilio ptolychus'' Godman & Salvin, 1888 *''Papilio tydeus'' C. & R. Felder, 1860 *''Papilio weymeri'' Niepelt, 1914 *''Papilio woodfordi'' Godman & Salvin, 1888

External links

Butterfly Corner
Images from Naturhistorisches Museum, Naturhistorisches Museum Wien Papilio, woodfordi Taxa named by Frederick DuCane Godman Taxa named by Osbert Salvin Butterflies described in 1888 {{papilionidae-stub