“I was watching this pair of Common Mormons (Papilio polytes romulus) in what I thought was a fairly normal courtship ritual, when I realised that it was actually the female performing a courtship dance above the male, instead of the other way around in most cases. After a while, things ‘normalise’ when the male hovers around the female when she perched on a leaf. But when she leaves the perch, it seems she is doing the courting again.
“Quick online research shows that Tiger Swallowtail (Papilio glaucus) females also solicit courtship from the males, in about a third of the pairs observed HERE.
“Not only Papilionids, but apparently Nymphalids also switch courtship behaviour as seen from this clip I found on youtube HERE.
Lena Chow
Singapore
31st January 2016
Common Mormons – female courting male
Leave a Reply