Red Helen swallowtail
The red Helen is a large swallowtail butterfly with dark brownish black wings. Each back wing has a big cream white patch and red half moons near the edge. It flies in shady forests in southern India and south-east Asia.
How fast is it?
Fun facts
Its round eggs are apricot yellow and only 1.2 millimetres wide.
The mother lays each egg on the tip of a very young leaf in a shady jungle.
If you bother its caterpillar, it pushes out a forked orange-red horn from behind its head.
In southern India it flies all year round.
Most asked questions about Red Helen swallowtail
?What is special about the red Helen caterpillar?
When it is disturbed, it pushes out a forked orange-red horn behind its head to scare enemies.
?Where does the red Helen live?
In forests of southern India and south-east Asia.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Papilio helenus
- Named by
- Linnaeus, 1758
- Group
- Butterflies
- Family
- Papilionidae
- Classification
- Insecta > Lepidoptera > Papilionidae
- Lives on
- Asia
- Also known as
- Red Helen
Where the facts come from
- Papilio helenus (Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0): what it looks like, where it lives, what it eats, sizes and fun facts, retold in simple words.
- Picture by J.M.Garg. CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons. The sticker of this bug is drawn from this picture.
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