Geographic variation
Male Papilio dardanus. Males are truly monomorphic and non-mimetic.
P. dardanus’ observed female diversity is not equally distributed over the African continent, and females from South-Africa might look very different from ones occurring in Kenya or Madagascar. Therefore the species has been divided into subspecies.
Some of those subspecies have a very broad distribution range (for example, P. dardanus dardanus, which is found in West Africa), whereas others are only found in small localities (for example, P. dardanus ochracea and P. dardanus flavicornis found on two distinct mountain-tops only).
In some sub-species females are non-mimetic and their wings resemble the male pattern. This is for example the case in the two sub-species of the Indian Ocean that are found on Madagascar and Grande Comore.
Subspecies
- P. d. meseres
- P. d. tibullus
- P. d. polytrophus
- P. d. dardanus
- P. d. antinorii
- P. d. humbloti
- P. d. meriones
- P. d. cenea
- P. d. flavicornis
- P. d. ochracea
- P. d. byatti