2022 Volume 73 Issue 2 Pages 43-52
In the Japanese archipelago, more than 100 species of stray butterflies originating from across the sea have been recorded. Investigation of the origin of these stray butterflies is important in the area of insular biogeography because their migrations can provide opportunities to expand their habitat and affect the biological communities of the islands. An Achillides butterfly was collected in February 2020 as a stray butterfly in the Miyako Islands, where no Achillides butterflies are distributed. Achillides is a subgenus of the genus Papilio, commonly called swallowtail butterflies, and one of the most diverse clades of swallowtails. Since the subgenus consists of many similar species and subspecies, both genetic and morphological analyses were carried out to identify this specimen and to investigate the origin of the stray butterfly. Phylogenetic network analysis based on the ND5 sequence revealed that the butterfly is a member of the bianor-polyctor group. On the basis of fine-scale morphological comparison with the subspecies in the bianor-polyctor group, the stray butterfly was identified as the Chinese peacock Papilio bianor bianor Cramer, (1777), which originates from mainland China with the closest known records being found at a distance of 550 km from where this specimen was collected.