Common Rose

The first butterfly in the 'Butterfly from my garden" series is the Common Rose (Atrophaneura aristolochiae). This large, slow flying butterfly is also the most conspicuous in our garden. I used to see it every day, but it never seemed to perch on any of the plants that we had planted.   

So for a week I followed this butterfly and finally found it's favourite plant. A weed creeper, which gives purple flowers, and grows in a nondescript section of our garden. Once I discovered this secret spot, I set my tripod and spent an entire morning, photographing this beauty.

The Common Rose is a gentle flyer and though difficult I managed to get a two photographs of the butterfly in flight-it took more than 200 attempts to get  those two, one of which is the above.

This butterfly is pretty commonly found in India in open, cultivated areas, scrub and deciduous forests. This butterfly is mimicked by female common Mormon (will feature that in the next post).

Other than the female Common Mormon, the butterfly also resembles the Malabar Rose and Crimson rose.

The butterfly belongs to the Swallowtail family and has a red body.