Description
For terms see External morphology of Lepidoptera
Ornithoptera goliath has a wingspan up to 28 centimetres (11 in). This makes it the world's second largest butterfly, after the Queen Alexandra's Birdwing. The African Giant Swallowtail reaches an almost equal wing span.
Male. The fore wings are black. The costal edge is green and beyond the medium black bar is a large green triangle which reaches the dorsum but not the black ternum.The underside is greenish yellow and greenish. The veins are black and there is a black border.The outer cells have small, black spots. The hind wings are golden with a black edge bordered basally by a thin green line. There are some green spots in the cells of the golden area. The underside is similar to the upperside, but there is no black border. The edge is green. The spots in the cells of the golden area are black.
The abdomen is yellow with black-edged tergites. The head and thorax are black and the underside of thorax has tufts of red hair.
Female. Ornithoptera goliath is strongly sexually dimorphic. The female is larger than the male and the basic colour is dark-brown. At the outer edge there is a postdiscal chain of white spots. In the discal cell there is a cluster of white spots, sometimes shaped like an "E". The hind wings have a broad yellow postdiscal band with a chain of dark-brown spots in the cells. The underside is very like the upper but the colours are stronger.
-
Ornithoptera goliath ssp. titan.Male.
-
Ornithoptera goliath ssp. titan.Female
Read more about this topic: Ornithoptera Goliath
Famous quotes containing the word description:
“A sound mind in a sound body, is a short, but full description of a happy state in this World: he that has these two, has little more to wish for; and he that wants either of them, will be little the better for anything else.”
—John Locke (1632–1704)
“Everything to which we concede existence is a posit from the standpoint of a description of the theory-building process, and simultaneously real from the standpoint of the theory that is being built. Nor let us look down on the standpoint of the theory as make-believe; for we can never do better than occupy the standpoint of some theory or other, the best we can muster at the time.”
—Willard Van Orman Quine (b. 1908)
“Why does philosophy use concepts and why does faith use symbols if both try to express the same ultimate? The answer, of course, is that the relation to the ultimate is not the same in each case. The philosophical relation is in principle a detached description of the basic structure in which the ultimate manifests itself. The relation of faith is in principle an involved expression of concern about the meaning of the ultimate for the faithful.”
—Paul Tillich (1886–1965)