A very special observation Protesilaus protesilaus

This observation is worthy of more extensive comment

"Recorded in the diary"😀
We passed the main entrance to the Ybycuí National Park in Paraguay, where I was birding with friends earlier this year.
There was a cluster of butterflies by a mud puddle like this, as usual, so we got out of the cars and went to take pictures.
Among them was one striking white beauty. I'm not familiar with butterflies, especially non-European ones, but it looked like a swallowtail butterfly. But there are plenty of beautiful butterflies in the tropics, so I'm not surprised by anything.

That is, until my friend started shouting the Latin name of the butterfly in ecstasy and "sneaking" up on him with his cell phone on his knees.

I have to be at least 2 meters away with my 450 mm lens, but on the other hand I'm used to kneeling down when taking pictures 😁

My friend took pictures, admired and told us how he drew the butterfly in a paper notebook when he was 15 years old, based on a specimen on display in the National Museum in Prague.
At that time (until the fall of communism in the Czech Republic) there was no chance to travel on holiday "to the West" so the probability of ever seeing this species of butterfly alive was pure zero.

So his childhood dream came true and it was visible 😊
The butterfly was "tamed" and posed beautifully, I think the photo is a good one.
It survived our admiration in good health, our friend didn't catch it, although the temptation must have been strong.

Well as one gets older, one just looks and is happy for every experience.

The butterfly is probably really rare, my sighting in Paraguay (the red dot) is the first in Paraguay.

There aren't many sightings in all of South America either.