Ornithoptera allotei
species of insect
Ornithoptera allotei is the name given to a birdwing butterfly that is a natural hybrid between Ornithoptera victoriae and Ornithoptera priamus urvillianus. Despite the fact that hybrids do not warrant a binomial name, the name Ornithoptera allotei persists from the original description of the butterfly as a species.
The hybrid is known from Bougainville Island and Malaita Island, where the ranges of both parent species overlap.
This butterfly is, because of its rarity, one of the most valuable in the world, with male specimens typically selling for more than £4,000 (US$7,000). It is said to be an ideal candidate for commercial exploitation because its parents are not rare on Bougainville Island, and they may be easily induced to mate with one another.
History
Ornithoptera allotei was described by Walter Rothschild in 1914 as a species, despite the assertion by its discoverer, Abbé Allotte, a priest at the Buin Mission, Bougainville Island, that it was a natural hybrid.
It was originally placed in the genus Troides. The female was described by H. M. Peebles and W. Schmassmann in 1917.
Schmid (1970), McAlpine (1970) and Haugum & Low (1978) all held the hybrid theory but the final proof of O. allotei being a natural hybrid was made by Ramón Straatman (Jan Haugum in Papilio International (1990)).
See also
Ornithoptera akakeae
Troides mixtum
References
Racheli, T., 1980.
The public source identifies “Ornithoptera allotei” as species of insect. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Ornithoptera, allotei and species.
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Stable identifiers, scientific names and standards terminology offer the best bridge between this overview and specialist evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Feb 3, 2024. The linked authority identifier is Q3010527. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1914, 1917, 1970 and 1978.
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This entry incorporates text from “Ornithoptera allotei” 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.