Rajah Brooke's birdwing, is a birdwing and among the largest butterfly found in the rainforests of the Thai-Malay Peninsula, Borneo, Sumatra, and some off shore islands.

 The butterfly was named by the naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace in 1855, after James Brooke, the Rajah of Sarawak.  He had it named after James Brooke, the first ‘White Rajah’.

The locals were familiar with this butterfly before that date because it is such a large and attractive insect. Such graceful flight and brilliant colours.

The classification of the birdwings remains a little unclear, with the total number of species being estimated at between 20 and 30 and they are distributed across the tropical regions of the Indian subcontinent, S.E. Asia and Australasia. They are split into 3 genera: Trogonoptera, Troides and Ornithoptera, with Rajah Brooke’s birdwing now confirmed as Trogonoptera brookiana.

These butterflies gather in groups consisting of up to 80 individuals for drinking mineralized water from puddles in order to absorb sodium and potassium that they need for activating adult behavior. The lifespan of this insect is 7 days

#1 - Gathering in group