Giant Homerus Jamaican Swallowtails (Papilio homerus): Largest Butterflies of the Americas

The formal presentation of giant Homerus swallowtails to wildlife-loving amateurs and professionals outside Jamaica dates to 1793. It deals with the taxonomic decisions of Tønder-born Danish zoologist Johan Christian Fabricius (January 7, 1745 – March 3, 1808). It draws upon the scientist in question’s experience and expertise as:

• Pupil in the Danish- and German-speaking harbor town of Altona’s gymnasium;
• Student at the University of Copenhagen, 1762;
• Student in Uppsala of Småland-born Swedish botanist, physician, proto-ecologist, taxonomist and zoologist Carl Linnaeus (May 23, 1707 – January 10, 1778), 1762 - 1764;
• Taxonomist of such joint-limbed, segment-bodied invertebrates as arachnids, crustaceans and insects;
• Writer of arthropod taxonomy-related research publications;
• Zoologist at the Universities of Copenhagen, 1770-, and of Kiel, Germany, 1775-/1776-.

Johan’s taxonomy describes a lepidopteran (moth, moth butterfly, skipper butterfly or true butterfly) of great beauty, grace and size. Jamaica’s giant Homerus swallowtails display the hallmark insect characteristics of:

• Compound eyes;
• Exterior skeleton;
• One pair of frontal antennae (leg-like, sensory appendages);
• Three pairs of jointed legs;
• Tripartite body divided recognizably from top to bottom into head, thorax and abdomen.

They exhibit:

• Blue- and red-spotted undersides of wings;
• Dark abdomens, antennae, heads, legs and thoraxes;
• Pair of dark tails, with both claiming teardrop-shaped tips and each protruding from the middle edge of their respective hindwing;
• Set of dark lower and upper wings;
• Yellow-banded uppersides of wings.

Male giant Homerus swallowtails uniquely express abdomen-area, hair scales on both hindwings.

Complete metamorphosis drives the life cycles and natural histories of Jamaica’s giant Homerus swallowtails. The term expresses the unique look which characterizes each of the four stages within the lepidopteran in question’s biologies:

• Egg;
• Larva;
• Pupa;
• Winged adult.

The eggs laid by Jamaica’s female giant Homerus swallowtails get smooth, spherical shapes sized at 0.079 inches (2 millimeters) each. They initially give pale green impressions, which experience pale yellow stages before darkening to brown just before hatching. They have to be deposited in wet limestone forests and lower montane rainforests at altitudes of 498.69 – 1,998.03 feet (152 – 609 meters) above sea level. Deposition in degraded, disturbed habitats makes them vulnerable to predation by parasitic wasps (Chrysonotomyia spp).

It behooves Jamaica's female giant Homerus swallowtails to deposit their eggs on the leafy undersides of specific food and host plants. As the larval stage, caterpillars consume:

• First the eggs from which they hatch;

• Then water mahoe leaves (Hernandia catalpifolia, H. jamaicensis).

They expect humidity regularly hovering around 100%. They face life-threatening interactions with bacteria. They fight predators with stinkbombs released from the forked, retractable, terpene-emitting osmeterium located on the first three thoracic segments. They must survive 60-day pupal stages to emerge as 3-inch (7.62-centimeter) adults with:

• Average wingspans of 4.92 – 7.88 inches (12.5 – 20 centimeters);

• Daytime, high-canopy, slow-moving flights from February to the end of April and from September to the end of October.

The primary forest's vegetative food and shelter options accommodate adult giant Homerus swallowtail needs for floral food sources and shelter options. But adults adapt to cultivated, disturbed forest edges and secondary-growth environments wherever nectar is obtainable from:

• Orange sage (Lantana camara);

• Shoe black (Hibiscus rosasinensis);

• Water mahoe.

Historical records and local anecdotes indeed associate giant Homerus swallowtails with seven of Jamaica's 13 parishes. But agro-industrial development, climate change, global warming and socio-economic imperatives cause overlaps between bio-geographical requirements and pertinent resources to occur only in the parishes of:

• Portland and St. Thomas, where eastern Jamaica's Blue and John Crow Mountains meet;

• Trelawney, among western Jamaica's cave- and limestone-riddled karst landscapes and cockfighting pit-reminiscent sinkholes of Cockpit Country.

Conservationists arrive at endangered-status conclusions when guesstimating the current and future sustainability of Jamaica's giant Homerus swallowtail populations. They consider as particularly detrimental to the butterfly's survival negative impacts from:

• Agro-industrialists;

• Collectors;

• Miners.

Governmental proscriptions on logging do not moderate the conversion of thousands of acres / hectares of rainforest habitats to coffee plantations. They do not regulate the impacts of bauxite mining on air, forest, soil, and water quality. They do not stop the reduction in wild populations by hunters gathering rare and unusual specimens for international traders and private collectors. As a result, Jamaica's economy gets reconfigured in world market-friendly ways that generate jobs and revenue but fragment forests into wildlife-unfriendly wildland – urban interfaces.

Like their namesake, Jamaica's giant Homerus swallowtails harbor stories of consequential deeds, places, and times. Their back-stories likewise inject into the course of human history the prescriptions and proscriptions of what does and does not work in interactions between people and their environment. It still is possible to record and transmit the ecological information contained within the bio-geographical needs of giant Homerus swallowtails, as:

• Blue and John Crow Mountains National Park's icon;

• Jamaica's obligate, pollen-dispersing, vegetation-controlling flagship and keystone species.

The Universities of Florida and the West Indies look to solid track records in species conservation through:

• Captive breeding;

• Habitat protection;

• Species cross-breeding.

Scientific research just needs the finance-empowering, results-oriented support of:

• Business;

• Government;

• Wildlife-loving activists.

My special thanks to talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet.

Species name of Papilio homerus honors Homer, blind ancient poet-historian of the Trojan War.
"Homer and his Guide": 1874 oil on canvas by William-Adolphe Bouguereau (November 30, 1825-August 19, 1905)
Milwaukee Art Museum, Milwaukee County, southeastern Wisconsin: Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:William-Adolphe_Bouguereau_(1825-1905)_-_Homer_and_his_Guide_(1874).jpg

Johann Christian Fabricius (January 7, 1745 – March 3, 1808) gave first formal presentation of Papilio homerus in 1793.
engraving of 1805 portrait by Gerhard Ludvig Lahde (October 19, 1765 – November 29, 1833); F.W. Hope, "The Autobiography of John Christian Fabricius" (1845)
The Transactions of the Entomological Society of London, vol. IV, frontispiece: Public Domain, via Biodiversity Heritage Library @ https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/14690430

Papilio homerus
illustration by Eugenius Johann Christoph Esper (June 2, 1742 – July 27, 1810)
E.J.C. Esper, Die ausländischen Schmetterlinge in Abbildungen nach der Natur (1830), Vol. II, Tab. XLV, Figure 1: Not in copyright, via Internet Archive @ https://archive.org/details/dieauslndische02espe/page/n104/mode/1up

Papilio homerus specimen collected in 1887 from Fish River, Hanover Parish, northwestern Jamaica
Ulster Museum, Botanic Gardens, Belfast, Northern Ireland: Robert Nash, robert.nash at magni.org.uk, CC BY 2.5, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Papilio_homerus_ulster.jpg

flower and leaves of Lantana camara, New World native plant that is nectared by Papilio homerus
Lisbon, west central Portugal: Alvesgaspar, CC BY SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:LantanaFlowerLeaves.jpg

Papilio homerus finds refuge in northwestern Jamaica's Cockpit Country, a wilderness of caves, cliffs and rainforests.
Cockpit Country primarily lies in Trelawny, with spillovers into Clarendon, St Ann, St Elizabeth, St James and Manchester.: Justin Leonard (Scrap Pile), CC BY 2.0, via Flickr @ https://www.flickr.com/photos/scrap_pile/3177934373/

Habitat protection is a major concern in Cockpit Country, where bauxite mining attracts attention from commercial interests.
Cockpit Country, Saint Ann Parish, 1984: "Central Jamaica, Off main road running South from Discovery Bay. Somewhere in Cockpit Country.": Paul Morris, CC BY SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bauxite_Jamaica_1984.jpg

"Homerus Swallowtail" (1:57): video taken April 2002 in Jamaican Cockpit Country
rigdoncurrie. "Homerus Swallowtail" (1:57). YouTube, July 14, 2011, @ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZkAJTa2aAzM

Remoteness of Jamaica's Cockpit Country, with conical hills and ridges separated by steep-sided hollows, preserves rich cultural heritage of rural communities as well as offers refuge for species such as Papilio homerus.
northwestern Jamaica's Cockpit Country: Fabian Tompsett, CC BY SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cockpit_Country.jpg

Papilio homerus resides in Blue & John Crow Mountains National Park, where over 800 endemic Jamaican plants thrive.
view of Blue Mountains from Oatley Mountain Trail in southeastern Portland Parish's Holywell National Park: Wolmadrian, Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Blue_Mountains,_Jamaica.jpg

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