Rajah Brooke's Birdwing male (Trogonoptera brookiana) shown with a steel engraving of Sir James Brooke, the famous 'White Rajah' of Sarawak who Wallac

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Rajah Brooke's Birdwing male (Trogonoptera brookiana) shown with a steel engraving of Sir James Brooke, the famous 'White Rajah' of Sarawak who Wallace named the butterfly for. Wallace had been the guest of his friend Brooke in 1855 when he discovered this butterfly. Wallace wrote of another birdwing butterfly Ornithoptera croesus \on taking it out of my net, and opening the glorious wings, my heart began to pound violently, the blood rushed to my head, and I felt more like fainting, than I have done in apprehension of immediate death\" (from Wallace's 'Malay Archipelago'. Males can be seen in large groups near mineral-rich seeps. The bigger and plainer females seldom come down from the canopy and were once wrongly considered to be outnumbered by the males 1000:1. We now know the ratio is more nearly equal."

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Size: 5552px × 3148px
Photo credit: © PAUL D STEWART/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No

Keywords: 1800s, 19th, alfred, animal, biological, biology, birdwing, brooke, brookiana, butterfly, century, discovery, entomological, entomology, exotic, fauna, human, insect, james, naming, naturalist, nature, ornithoptera, people, person, portrait, russel, sarawak, specimen, trogonoptera, wallace, wildlife, zoological, zoology