Common Mormon Swallowtail (Papilio polytes)

Scientific Name:
In the scientific world, the larva or caterpillar of this butterfly is known as Papilio polytes. In Bengali and English, it is commonly called the caterpillar or larva of the 'Common Mormon' butterfly.
Family and Genus:
According to the classification of the animal kingdom, this is a species of the family Papilionidae of the order Lepidoptera. It belongs to the genus Papilio.

Origin and Habitat:
They can be found in countless numbers starting from Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, Nepal, Sri Lanka to China and Southeast Asia. Mainly, they roam and live in lemon-type trees, home gardens, and light forests.

Physical Structure and Camouflage:
In the primary stage of life, these caterpillars look exactly like bird droppings, which helps in self-defense from predatory birds. Later when they grow up, they take a dark beautiful green color, and unique bands with transverse black and light spots are created on their bodies which look like the eyes of a snake's face.

Food and Life Cycle:
Their favorite food is tender leaves of lemon tree, bael tree, curry leaf, and kamini tree. After hatching from eggs, the larvae grow quickly by eating leaves and later go to the pupal stage to transform into a fully grown butterfly with beautiful black-and-white wings.

Benefits:
When these caterpillars grow up and turn into butterflies, they play a wonderful role in pollination by roaming from flower to flower and in enhancing the beauty of nature.

Harmful Aspects:
If their numbers increase on small lemon trees of houses or nurseries, they can cause some damage to the tree or leave it leafless by eating the leaves.

I learned about them from various sites including iNaturalist, Wikipedia and Google.

_{​(All posts are written in Bengali and translated into English using Google Translate.)}

Camera Used	Samsung SM-G973F
F-Stop	F2.4
ISO speed	ISO
Focal length	26mm
Flash	No
Editing app	No
Photography	(Papilio polytes)
Photographer	@mshbd
Location	Natore, Bangladesh