How large does a butterfly have to be before anybody notices it
is disappearing? In the case of Papua New Guinea's (PNG) Queen
Alexandra's birdwing, the answer is enormous. The world's
largest butterfly boasts a 1ft (30cm) wingspan – imagine the
width of a school ruler - yet few outsiders in its rainforest
home in Oro province in northern PNG have ever seen it. It's a
scenario unlikely to improve as oil palm plantation and logging
remorselessly devours this endangered butterfly's habitat.
Edwardian naturalist Albert Meek first recorded it in 1906 on a
collecting expedition to PNG. The fast-flying butterfly
frequents high rainforest canopy so Meek resorted to blasting
them down by shotgun. The Natural History Museum taxonomically
allocated his buckshot-peppered specimens into the birdwing
genus (a tropical grouping possessing super-elongated forewings)
and named it after Edward VII's wife. Because of substantial
sexual dimorphism it took some time to correlate males and
females as the same species. The females