Troides chimaera Rothschild, 1904 - male

Description:

At the needle there is a determination label with the mention “Ornitoptera chimaera Rothsch.” (det. Aurelian Popescu-Gorj); specimen from the collection Raymond Straatman. Species found in the wet forests of the central part of the mountain regions of New Guinea, at altitudes of about 1.000 m. Adults fly near the top of the tree canopy and rarely descend near the ground to sip the nectar from flowers of Hibiscus, Spathodea (an invasive species!) etc. The larvae develop on different toxic species of Aristolochia sp. Species listed in Annex II of the CITES Convention. Raymond Straatman (1917-1987) was a passionate Dutch lepidopterologist, specializing in the study of species of the genus Troides (“bird wing butterflies”). Raymond Straatman arrived in Indonesia at the end of the 940s and settled in Sumatra, where he worked for a Dutch company dealing with the exploitation of natural rubber. In the 950s he was the first to discover the preimaginal stages at Troides brookiana (Wallace, 1855) and Atrophaneura priapus hageni (Rogenhofer, 1889), giving a detailed description of them accompanied by detailed drawings. Unfortunately, the political situation in Indonesia of the Sukarno regime forced him to leave this country, leaving first to Australia (1959), and then, only one year, settling in Papua New Guinea, where he engaged on a rubber tree plantation located on the Veimauri River. Between 1965 and 1967, Straatman worked for The Bishop Museum of Science & Nature (Bradenton, Florida), traveling and collecting a rich lepidopterological material in Papua New Guinea and Solomon Archipelago. On this occasion, he uncovered the preimaginal stages at Troides victoriae (Gray, 1856) and Troides priamus urvillianus (Guérin-Méneville, 1830), uncovered a new subspecies of Troides victoriae (Gray, 1856) and conducted numerous researches on flats of the genus Troides, research that made essential contributions to the knowledge of the biology of these insects, many of them threatened with extinction. Towards the end of his life, Raymond Straatman turned his attention to experimental crossbreeding studies, obtaining interspecific hybrids between different species within the genus Troides. Thus, successfully completing the crossing between Troides victoriae (Gray, 1856) and Troides priamus urvillianus (Guérin-Méneville, 1830) he discovered that Troides allottei (Rothschild, 1914) is in fact an interspecific natural hybrid between these two species. After his death, specimens from the collection came to the possession of many prestigious natural science museums in the world.

Format:

image

Collections:

Grigore Antipa National Museum of Natural History

Content partner:

Grigore Antipa National Museum of Natural History

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