Blue Emperor

• GeneralIts deep blue shows from 30 m away; it is a tourist emblem of Queensland.
• The electric blue is not a pigment: it is produced by the microstructure of the scales, a structural colour. At rest, with its wings closed, it shows only the dull brown of the underside and vanishes into the landscape.
• Males are territorial and are drawn to blue: they fly at blue objects, including tourists' T-shirts and caps, mistaking them for rivals or females.
• The female is told apart by blue lunules on the trailing edge of the hindwings, where the male has only black.
• The caterpillar has an osmeterium, a retractable orange organ behind the head that it everts to release a repellent smell.
• Systematic replanting of Melicope elleryana in Australia helped its populations recover; it is protected in Queensland, where it is used as a tourism emblem.

Skeleton type

Invertebrate - chitin exoskeleton (insect)

Habitat and environment

Tropical rainforest and coastal gardens

Size at birth

Spherical egg of about 1 mm across, which darkens before hatching

Sexual maturity

The males patrol sunlit clearings and forest edges and defend particular perches; the iridescent blue is a structural colour, not a pigment

Gestation / incubation

Development from egg to adult takes 4 to 5 weeks in warm conditions and lengthens to one or two months in cooler climates; the green chrysalis measures about 4 cm and hangs from the food plant

Litter / clutch size

Spherical pale eggs laid one by one on the upper surface of the young leaves of the food plant; the female prefers low trees, up to about 2 metres

Sources consulted: Wikipedia (es): Papilio ulysses · Fichas de identificacion de Papilio ulysses · Recopilaciones de biologia de Papilio ulysses · fichas de identificacion · Ficha de especie de Papilio ulysses · Common & Waterhouse 1981 via recopilaciones · Fichas de especie de Papilio ulysses

The pins mark the parks where its presence is documented.