page_title: Cressida cressida
section_title: Behaviour
hierarchical_section_title: Cressida cressida / Behaviour
caption_attribution_description: English: These two butterflies were mating for a long time (at least half an hour) late this afternoon in my back garden near Cooktown, Queensland
context_page_description: Cressida cressida, the clearwing swallowtail or big greasy, is a Troidine swallowtail butterfly found in northern Australia, New Guinea, Maluku, and Timor. It is in the monotypic genus Cressida.
  Remarkably, this species is not particularly closely related to other Asian swallowtails, but instead seems to be the closest living relative of the peculiar South American swallowtails of genus Euryades.
context_section_description: Cressida cressida flies less erratically and more slowly than most other swallowtails, but may fly rapidly if disturbed.
  Males tend to patrol breeding areas one to three meters above the ground in search of females, rarely landing. Areas where the larval food plant grows are defended aggressively by males, more often successfully by the larger males. Females are seized and forcibly mated in mid-air, but smaller males may carry the female to the ground. Females already bearing a sphragis are sometimes captured, but released soon after. Copulation lasts at least fourteen hours.
  Females tend to fly closer to the ground in search of suitable larval food plants, and if already mated, will signal their unavailability in flight by raising the abdomen and lowering the wings to display the sphragis.
caption: Copulating pair (female left, male right) of C. c. cressida on ground
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