Papilio anactus
species of insect
Papilio anactus, the dainty swallowtail, dingy swallowtail or small citrus butterfly is a medium-sized butterfly from the family Papilionidae, that is endemic to Australia.
For protection against predators, this non-poisonous butterfly mimics the poisonous male Cressida cressida, another swallowtail butterfly that obtains its toxic properties through its host plant, the Dutchman's pipe.
Distribution
Papilio anactus is endemic to Australia. It was originally only present in New South Wales, Victoria and Queensland, but due to the growing of citrus, a larval food plant of this species, in orchards, the species spread to South Australia in the late 1920s. Papilio anactus is not present on Kangaroo Island or elsewhere in Australia, as there are currently too few citrus trees. Sadly this butterfly is much less common than it once used to be.
It also occurs on New Caledonia. There, it may be an introduced species or a vagrant.
Life cycle
Egg
The eggs are relatively large, pale yellow, and roughly spherical. The eggs change to an orange colour when the larvae are almost ready to emerge.
The public source identifies “Papilio anactus” as species of insect. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Papilio, anactus and species.
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Datasets, specimens, observations and peer-reviewed methods provide the appropriate test for the technical claims summarized here. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 21, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1346395. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference.
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This entry incorporates text from “Papilio anactus” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.