Old glass entomological box (26x39x5.5cm) in very good condition, containing six large and rare brightly-colored Lepidoptera (butterflies) belonging to the genera Troides and Kallima. The Kallima inachus and K.paralekta shown here, also known as dead leaf butterflies, have brilliantly colored violet-blue and orange uppersides, but when they're at rest with their wings folded, their undersides look very much like dead leaves. When they feel threatened by a predator (usually a bird), they drop down and close their wings, resembling a dead leaf.
The other three large black and yellow butterflies shown here belong to the genus Troides, now renamed Ornithoptera. They are among the most sought-after butterflies because of their large size, bright colors and the rather inaccessible places where they live, notably the impenetrable jungles of Indonesia as far south as Papua New Guinea, where they thrive in the canopy between twenty and thirty meters above ground. Top row, middle: a large male Troides (Ornithoptera) hypolitus from the Celebes Islands; bottom row, left: a female Troides amphrysus amphrysus. Larger than males, females have dark brown to black forewings with gold-edged veins, and yellow and black hindwings with brown veins. Bottom right: a (smaller) male of the same species, with black forewings outlined in yellow, and yellow hindwings, scalloped in black, with fine black veins. Troides amphrysus amphrysus are found only in the primary forests of the large island of Java, and at least for the males are considered among the most beautiful butterflies in the world.
The box, marked on the back with Boubée (Maison naturaliste, pl. Saint André des Arts, disappeared in the mid-sixties), pre-dates 1965, but is nevertheless in good condition. The butterflies are in perfect condition.