Troides plato

Troides plato, the silver birdwing, is a birdwing butterfly endemic to Timor. Troides plato is a butterfly with a large wingspan and scalloped hindwings. It exhibits sexual dimorphism.

Silver birdwing
Male, upperside
Conservation status
CITES Appendix II [1]
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Arthropoda
Class:	Insecta
Order:	Lepidoptera
Family:	Papilionidae
Genus:	Troides
Species:	T. plato
Binomial name
Troides plato Wallace, 1865

The males have black forewings with veins discreetly highlighted in white on the upper side, more broadly on the underside, and yellow hindwings veined and broadly edged in black.

The females have black forewings with veins largely outlined in white, except in the basal part, even more so on the reverse and the hindwings are yellow veined and broadly bordered in black, the border doubled by a submarginal line of large confluent black dots.

Described forms are nychonia Jordan, 1908 (male), chitonia Jordan, 1908 (male), and delormei Le Moult, 1931 (female).

Taxonomy

Previously considered to be a subspecies of haliphron, plato was raised to a full species by Haugum and Low on the basis of differences in the genitalia.

Biogeographic realm

Australasian realm.

Related species

Troides plato is a member of the Troides haliphron species group. The members of this clade are:

• Troides haliphron (Boisduval, 1836)
• Troides darsius (Gray, [1853])
• Troides vandepolli (Snellen, 1890)
• Troides criton (C. & R. Felder, 1860)
• Troides riedeli (Kirsch, 1885)
• Troides plato (Wallace, 1865)
• Troides staudingeri (Röber, 1888)