Papilio memnon (Linnaeus, 1758)

OCCURENCE

Habitat: Forest - Subtropical/Tropical Moist Montane
Very little is known about the habitat and the ecology of this species. Both Mount Gede and Mount Pangrango are volcanoes connected by a high saddle known as Kandang Badak. The mountain slopes are very steep and are cut into rapidly flowing streams, which carve deep valleys and long ridges (Whitten and Whitten 1992), meaning many parts are likely inaccessible to humans. The National Park which encompasses the two volcanoes is characterised by lower and upper montane and subalpine forests (Whitten and Whitten 1992), which this species is likely to reside in. The host plant(s) of this species are unknown.
(IUCN 2020)

Population: There is very little information on the population status and trends of this species. It is known only from two localities, and therefore its global population is likely to be rather small. It was described as apparently abundant on Mount Gede (Tsukada and Nishiyama 1982), but this is doubtful given that numbers are very few in museum collections (D. Peggie pers. comm. 2019). There are no recent data for this species.
Range: This species is found in western Java (Collins and Morris 1985). It has a very restricted range and is only thought to be found on Mount Gede and Mount Pangrango (Collins and Morris 1985). The estimated extent of occurrence, based on the size of the area around Mount Gede and Mount Pangrango, is approximately 750 km². The area of Mount Gede Pangrango National Park is 220 km² (WDPA 2016) and this is likely an approximation of the maximum available past area of occupancy. Relatively recent literature suggests that most of the natural habitat of the species has disappeared (Mardiastuti et al. 2008). The extent of occurrence is therefore likely to be less than the current estimate.
(IUCN 2020)

Occurrence and observation maps

Map of Life
GBIF
i-Naturalist

References

• Collins, N.M. and Morris, M.G. 1985. Threatened Swallowtail Butterflies of the World. The IUCN Red Data Book. IUCN, Gland and Cambridge.
• IUCN. 2020. The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Version 2020-3. Available at: www.iucnredlist.org. (Accessed: 10 December 2020).
• Mardiastuti, A., Kusrini, M.D., Mulyani, Y.A., Manullang, S. and Soehartono, T.R. 2008. Arahan Strategis Konsevasi Spesies Nasional 2008 - 2018. Direktorat Jenderal Perlindungan Hutan dan Konservasi Alam, Departemen Kehutanan.
• Tsukada, E. and Nishiyama, Y. 1982. Butterflies of the South East Asian islands. Plapac Co. Ltd., Tokyo.
• WDPA. 2016. Database on Protected Areas. A database online managed by UNEP-WCMC/IUCN World Commission on Protected Areas (WCPA). Available at: http://www.unep-wcmc.org/wdpa/index.htm.
• Whitten, T. and Whitten, J. 1992. Wild Indonesia: The Wildlife and Scenery of the Indonesian Archipelago. New Holland.