Papilio cynorta
species of insect
Papilio cynorta, the mimetic swallowtail or common white banded papilio, is a butterfly of the family Papilionidae. It is found in Africa, including Sierra Leone, Liberia, Ivory Coast, Ghana, Togo, southern Nigeria, Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Angola, the Republic of the Congo, Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania.
Adult females mimic Bematistes epaea, the common bematistes butterfly.
The larvae feed on Clausena, Vepris, Calodendrum, Citrus and Fagara species.
Taxonomy
Papilio cynorta is the nominal member of the cynorta species group. The members of the clade are:
Papilio arnoldiana Vane-Wright, 1995
Papilio cynorta Fabricius, 1793
Papilio plagiatus Aurivillius, 1898
References
Carcasson, R. H. (December 1960). "The Swallowtail Butterflies of East Africa (Lepidoptera, Papilionidae)". Journal of the East Africa Natural History Society. (which contains a key to East Africa members of the species group, diagnostic and other notes and figures)
External links
Owen, D. F. (1974). "Exploring Mimetic Diversity in West African Forest Butterflies".
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Papilio cynorta” as species of insect. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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The subject matters to the science & nature register because the source frames it as species of insect. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Stable identifiers, scientific names and standards terminology offer the best bridge between this overview and specialist evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 10, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q9198992. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1995, 1793, 1898 and 1960.
Current terminology should not be projected backward without checking the classification used when the underlying evidence was created. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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This entry incorporates text from “Papilio cynorta” 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.