Wild About Spain Blog

The Two-tailed Pasha

1/9/2013

After looking for this exotic and beautiful butterfly all Summer, I finally found it, thanks to friend Allen Hartley who tipped me off about the location. Many thanks Allen. The food plant for the Two-tailed Pasha is the Strawberry Tree, arbutus unedo and here they will congregate and are not troubled by curious lepidopterists like me, hence it is possible to get good photographs.

Two-tailed pasha - charaxes jasius

What a stunner! I was delighted to finally capture this amazing insect.

4 Comments

Bob Wright

2/9/2013 13:02:09

Beautiful photos of a beautiful butterfly. The tail in the lower shot reminds me of a stunted Swallowtail. And your next target is?

Oliver Reville link

4/9/2013 17:27:57

Wonderful Stephen. Email supplied as requested. Would be great if you could help me find these :)
Oli

Nathalie

29/10/2015 14:59:10

This morning found a number of these feeding on the last of the rotten figs on the trees in our garden. We don't have a strawberry tree and haven't seen any although it's possible someone has one in a garden. I couldn't get a good open winged shot as they batted off whenever I got close enough but they have stunning wings when closed. Do they only hatch on strawberry trees?

Stephen link

29/10/2015 22:13:07

Hallo Nathalie. No, my comment only refers to the colony that I photographed. Eggs can be laid on a wide variety of plants and the caterpillars eat the leaves. The adult insects feed on soft fruits, eg figs and in this case the fruit of the arbutus or strawberry tree, which is convenient as the caterpillars can also feed on the leaves. Lovely insect.

The Two-tailed Pasha

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