Dr. Platens Birdwing is a 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

Butterfly

A butterfly is a mainly day-flying insect of the order Lepidoptera, which includes the butterflies and moths. Like other holometabolous insects, the butterfly's life cycle consists of four parts: egg, larva, pupa and adult. Most species are diurnal. Butterflies have large, often brightly coloured...

 endemic to Palawan

Palawan

Palawan is an island province of the Philippines located in the MIMAROPA region or Region 4. Its capital is Puerto Princesa City, and it is the largest province in the country in terms of total area of jurisdiction. The islands of Palawan stretch from Mindoro in the northeast to Borneo in the...

, Balabac, Dumaran, and the Calamian Islands in the Philippines

Philippines

The Philippines , officially known as the Republic of the Philippines , is a country in Southeast Asia in the western Pacific Ocean. To its north across the Luzon Strait lies Taiwan. West across the South China Sea sits Vietnam...

. It is named for Dr. Carl Constantin Platen

Carl Constantin Platen

Carl Constantin Platen was a German physician and zoological collector of birds and butterflies....

.

Habitat and conservation

Troides plateni is found mainly in wooded habitats. The larval foodplant is Aristolochia tagala

Aristolochia tagala

Aristolochia tagala is commonly known as Indian birthwort and locally as Dutchman's pipe.-Distribution:It is widely distributed: the distribution is from the Himalaya to Sri Lanka through South East Asia and China, to Oceania...

(Aristolochiaceae). It is protected by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES).

Taxonomic position

The taxonomic relationship between T. rhadamantus rhadamantus

Troides rhadamantus

The Golden Birdwing is a birdwing butterfly which inhabits the Philippines. There are many subspecies on different islands of the Philippines and some authors consider Troides plateni and Troides dohertyi as subspecies of T. rhadamantus.-External links:*...

, T. rhadamantus plateni

Troides rhadamantus

The Golden Birdwing is a birdwing butterfly which inhabits the Philippines. There are many subspecies on different islands of the Philippines and some authors consider Troides plateni and Troides dohertyi as subspecies of T. rhadamantus.-External links:*...

and T. dohertyi

Troides dohertyi

The Talaud Black Birdwing is a birdwing butterfly endemic to the Talaud and Sangihe islands.This species is ranked as a subspecies of Troides rhadamantus by some authors.-Description:...

is uncertain. Haugum & Low (1985) rank plateni and dohertyi as a subspecies

Subspecies

Subspecies in biological classification, is either a taxonomic rank subordinate to species, ora taxonomic unit in that rank . A subspecies cannot be recognized in isolation: a species will either be recognized as having no subspecies at all or two or more, never just one...

 of T. rhadamantus (Tsukada & Nishiyama, 1980, 1982). Ohya (1983) rank plateni as a species

Species

In biology, a species is one of the basic units of biological classification and a taxonomic rank. A species is often defined as a group of organisms capable of interbreeding and producing fertile offspring. While in many cases this definition is adequate, more precise or differing measures are...

.

External links

• Troides plateni, Butterfly Corner