Rajah Brooke's Birdwing (Trogonoptera brookiana) is a distinctive black and electric-green birdwing

Birdwing

Birdwings are papilionid butterflies native to the Indian Subcontinent, mainland and archipelagic Southeast Asia and Australasia, and are usually regarded as belonging to three genera: Ornithoptera, Trogonoptera and Troides. Some authorities include additional genera...

 butterfly from the rainforests in the Thai-Malay Peninsula, Borneo

Borneo

Borneo is the third largest island in the world and is located north of Java Island, Indonesia, at the geographic centre of Maritime Southeast Asia....

, Natuna

Natuna Islands

The Natuna Islands archipelago is located in the Natuna Sea in the larger Tudjuh Archipelago, off the northwest coast of Borneo. The islands are administratively part of the Riau Islands province of Indonesia and are the northernmost non-disputed island group of Indonesia...

 and various small islands west of Sumatra

Sumatra

Sumatra is an island in western Indonesia, westernmost of the Sunda Islands. It is the largest island entirely in Indonesia , and the sixth largest island in the world at 473,481 km2 with a population of 50,365,538...

 (Banyak

Banyak Islands

The Banyak Islands are a group of mostly uninhabited islands located between Simeulue and Nias off the western coast of Sumatra in Indonesia's Aceh Province, consisting of 99 small land masses. The largest island in the group is Tuangku , with the principal town of Alaban...

, Simeulue, Batu

Batu Islands

The Batu Islands are an archipelago of Indonesia located in the Indian Ocean off the west coast of Sumatra, between Nias and Siberut. The three primary islands, of approximately equal size, are Pini, Tanahmasa, and Tanahbala. There are forty-eight smaller islands, of which less than half are...

 and Mentawai

Mentawai Islands

The Mentawai Islands are a chain of about seventy islands and islets off the western coast of Sumatra in Indonesia. Siberut is the largest of the islands. The other major islands are Sipura, North Pagai and South Pagai . The islands lie approximately 150 km off the Sumatran coast, across the...

). The butterfly was named by the naturalist Alfred R. Wallace in 1855, after James Brooke

James Brooke

James, Rajah of Sarawak, KCB was the first White Rajah of Sarawak. His father, Thomas Brooke, was an English Judge Court of Appeal at Bareilly, British India; his mother, Anna Maria, born in Hertfordshire, was the illegitimate daughter of Scottish peer Colonel William Stuart, 9th Lord Blantyre,...

, the Rajah of Sarawak.

The wings of the male butterflies are black and each forewing has seven teeth-shaped electric-green markings (the smaller hindwings are also black with green markings). The head is bright red and the body is black with red markings. The wings of the female butterflies are browner with prominent white flashes at the tips of the forewings and at the base of the hindwings. Both genders resemble the more restricted relative, the Palawan Birdwing

Troides trojana

The Palawan Birdwing is a butterfly of the family papilionidae. It is endemic to Palawan. It resembles its more widespread relative, the Rajah Brooke's Birdwing, but the male Palawan Birdwing has narrower green bands on the rearwings.The wingspan is approximately . The butterfly flies the whole...

, but (among others) males of the Rajah Brooke's Birdwing have more green to the rearwings. The larval host plant is Aristolochia

Aristolochia

Aristolochia is a large plant genus with over 500 species. Collectively known as birthworts, pipevines or Dutchman's pipes, they are the namesake of the family . They are widespread and occur in the most diverse climates. Some species, like A. utriformis and A...

 foveolata. Adults sip fruit juices and flower nectar.

Rajah Brooke's Birdwing is a protected species, listed under Appendix II of CITES, meaning that international trade is restricted.

The butterfly is the national butterfly of Malaysia.