Lime Butterfly @ West Coast

If you come across a Lime Butterfly (Papilio demoleus) around the West Coast Road area, it is very likely one of my wife, Wai Yen’s babies.

You see Wai Yen has been rearing and releasing Lime Butterflies for the past 8 months. 

It all started with a Limau Purut (Kaffir Lime) plant a friend gave us and a lime plant my daughter grew from seed.

Within 2 weeks of having the plants, the Lime butterflies found the plants and caterpillars started chomping on the new leaves.  Instead of killing the caterpillars, Wai Yen started rearing them and feeding them with older leaves so that the young leaves on the plants have a chance to grow.

Aug 2009 : Lime Butterfly drying its wings on Ceropegia woodii

Those butterflies she released eventually come back to lay eggs on our lime plants and the cycle continues !  It has reached a point where we always have a few Lime Butterfly caterpillars and pupae in our house and she sometimes has to get Lime leaves from her friends ;-)

All in all she has released more than 30 Lime Butterflies this year !

We are expecting Painted Jezebel (Delias hyparete) and Peacock Royal (Tajuria cippus) caterpillars anytime soon as Dendropthoe pentandra, a parasitic plant has started growing on our Sui Mei and Bottle Brush Tree.

 

Jun 2009 : A newly emerged Lime Butterfly drying its wings
on a Sui Mei (Wrightia religiosa plant)

Apr 2009 : A newly emerged Lime Butterfly resting on a
Syzgium campanulatum (Eugenia oleina) plant

More butterflies from Bunker Trail

Coelites epiminthia (m) - The Straight-banded Cateye. Uncommon, upperside is dull purple, usually found among the undergrowth of the forest.

Parides varuna (f) – The Common Batwing , another uncommon butterfly.  Easily recognized by the red color on the underside of its abdomen.

Butterflies from Bunker Trail

Bunker Trail is one of the best place in Johor to see the Nymphalidae butterflies from the Limenitidae subfamily, which include the Tanaecia, Euthalia, Dophla, Bassarona and Lexias.

Below are some photo of butterflies from this subfamily which I photographed recently.  Enjoy !

Bassarona dunya – The Great Marquis, a big and robust butterfly that is supposedly common in northern part of Malaysia peninsula.

Dophla evelina – The Red-spot Duke, another large and robust butterfly which can be seen at Bunker Trail.

Lexias cyanipardus – The Great Archduke (male), is uncommon.
It is larger than the Archduke (Lexia pardalis). The white spot at the wing tip is one of the ways to tell these 2 species apart.

Euthalia sp – I am not quite sure what is this.

Euthalia kanda – The Yellow Baron.
 

Tanaecia palguna – The Long-lined Viscount, one of the many Tanaecia which can be easily mistaken for the Malay Viscount (Tanaecia pelea)

Tanaecia munda - The Peninsula Viscount, another Malay Viscount look alike.

Tanaecia pelea – The Malay Viscount (female), ovipositing on Salacia euphlebia (family: Celastraceae)

June Fraser’s Hill adventure

Gopeng – Fraser’s Hill Trip , Jun 2009 Part 3/3

Sunset at Fraser’s Hill along the new road

After Gopeng, we drove to Fraser’s Hill and spent a few days at our ‘home-away-from-home’.  On arrival at the bungalow, the smell of durians greeted us !  Mrs Lim knew we are crazy about durians and have secured 5 local durians for us ! 

We had the durians after our dinner and breakfast.
The next day, more durians were delivered to the Bungalow !
We ate as much as we could and kept the remainder for supper for our mid-night outings.

A sample of the food we had during our stay

I have a few moth lifers, the highlight being Elibia dolichus (m).

The rest of the lifers are smaller moths which are too many to mention.  Below are some of the more colourful and interesting moths we saw during the trip :

For butterflies I didn’t have any lifer but there were still a few good ones.  I managed a record shot of the Yellow Orange Tip (Ixias pyrene) which I only managed to catch a glimpse in my May trip.  This will go on my ‘to shoot list’ for future trips.

Below are some ‘unusual’ butterfly shots from the trip …

The Red Calihp (Enispe intermedia), flapping its wings and showing the upperside.

The Tailed Judy (Abisara neophron) in flight
 

Tawny Palmfly (Elymnias panthera) taking off

Malayan Branded Yamfly (Yasoda pita) taking off

The Malayan Owl (Neorina lowii) taking off

I also managed to take some bird shots :

A pair of Greater Yellownape Woodpecker

and a Great Hornbill in flight !

This is yet another fantastic and fruitful trip to Malaysia !
 
=> Go to Part 2/3 – “Butterflies of Gopeng“
=> Go to Part 1/3 – “Gopeng - Rafflesia, Rajah Brooke’s Birdwing and Durians”

 

Butterflies of Gopeng

Gopeng – Fraser’s Hill Trip , Jun 2009 Part 2/3 

Rajah Brooke’s Birdwing

Burara etelka – Great Orange Awlet, my lifer at Gopeng!
It is huge, almost twice the size of Orange Awlet.

Kallima limborgii – The Leaf Butterfly

Faunis kirata – The Broad Striped Faun, one of the more uncommon Faun.
 

Xanthotaenia busiris – Yellow Barred

Yellow Barred caterpillar


Mooreana trichoneura – The Yellow Flat


Pseudocoladenia dan – The Fulvous Pied Flat

=> Go to Part 1/3 - “Gopeng - Rafflesia, Rajah Brooke’s Birdwing and Durians”
=> Go to Part 3/3 - “June Fraser’s Hill adventure”

Gopeng - Rafflesia, Rajah Brooke’s Birdwing and Durians

Gopeng – Fraser’s Hill Trip , Jun 2009 Part 1/3

Last month I few of us went to Gopeng and Fraser’s Hill.

I wanted to go back to Gopeng to see the Rafflesia since I missed it the last time.  The other excuse for making yet another trip to Gopeng/FH is the promise of free durians by the Gopeng resort owner and bungalow care taker at Fraser’s Hill.

I am very pleased with this trip as I finally saw my first Rafflesia, saw more RBB than I have ever seen and had the tastiest, freshest and best durians !

Here goes the photos ..

Kwok Wai Marcus and I at the ‘resort’

To see the Rafflesia we had to hike 600ft up
Along the way we saw a wild Begonia 
a plant with bright purple underside
and a few RBB caterpillars

and finally Rafflesia cantleyi !!
Unfortunately one has past its life span and the other one will only open in a day or two :-(

as we moved on we saw many Rafflesia flower buds on a vine !

and finally one that just bloomed ! Yahoo !!

A close-up shot of the flower bud.

On the way back we stop by the the Rajah Brooke’s area.  There were even more RBBs than our previous trip !!!

The durians at Gopeng were great. We had kampong durians.  We also picked up a few on our night outing and had them for breakfast.

We also saw a few stick insects:

Stheneboea repudiosa eating the leaf of Asystasia gangetica.

A pair of Abrosoma festinatum doing their business – Sex and Food !

one with a bright blue lateral stripe.

and many frogs and toads

=> Go to Part 2/3 – “Butterflies of Gopeng”