Code art.: 11525
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Ornithoptera croesus  (Wallace, 1859) it is a member of the Ornithoptera priamus species-group which, including croesus, is only found east of Weber's Line. The larval foodplants are species of the genus Pararistolochia. Matsuka (2001) illustrates the early stages (from N. Maluku; see also Igarashi, 1979).
The 'Wallace' in the vernacular name, Wallace's Golden Birdwing, refers to Alfred Russel Wallace who described the species in 1859. Wallace recounts his capture of the butterfly in his book (The Malay Archipelago, 1869): "The beauty and brilliancy of this insect are indescribable, and none but a naturalist can understand the intense excitement I experienced when I at length captured it. On taking it out of my net and opening the glorious wings, my heart began to beat violently, the blood rushed to my head, and I felt much more like fainting than I have done when in apprehension of immediate death. I had a headache the rest of the day, so great was the excitement produced by what will appear to most people a very inadequate cause."