Birdwing Butterfly Pop-Out Postcard

Some more Birdwing Butterfly facts...

One of Australia’s most beautiful butterfly species, The Cairns Birdwing is unique to a small area of North Eastern Australia, and found nowhere else in the world, making it an endemic species to the region. The male is a brilliant black and green, growing to a 13cm wingspan. The female, while a duller black and white with yellow, has a much larger wingspan up to 18cm. Their favourite habitat is wet tropic rainforest, feeding on nectar from flowering plants. When laying eggs, females are attracted to a vine which is poisonous to most other insects, yet the larvae of the Cairns Birdwing are able to harness the plants’ poison, and use it for their own defences against other butterfly larvae and birds.