Butterflies of Sri Lanka - #06 Common Mormon

Here is a male Common Mormon (Papilio polytes) butterfly which was resting at night on Karapincha leaf, Curry tree (Murraya koenigii). I was not able to focus the butterfly at all as it was very dark. So I set my Nikon D3200 built-in flash to manual mode and used it's Autofocus AF-assist light by setting the camera Single-point autofocus with the center focus point selected. As the butterfly was perched so low to the ground this was an easy task.

The Common Mormon is a common species of swallowtail butterfly widely distributed across Asia. This butterfly is known for the mimicry displayed by the numerous forms of its females which mimic inedible Red-bodied Swallowtails, such as the Common Rose and the Crimson Rose.

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The female of the Common Mormon is polymorphic. In South Asia, it has three forms or morphs.
While the male are monomorphic dark-coloured swallow-tailed butterfly.

Form stichius of the Common Mormon mimics the Common Rose very closely. This is the commonest form wherever the Common Rose flies.




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Form romulus mimics the Crimson Rose and is common over its range. It is not such a close mimic as the previous form being duller than its model, the Crimson Rose. It is easy to differentiate the mimics from models by the colour of their body – the models are red-bodied and the mimics are black-bodied.

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