The royal Forest Queen: Euxanthe Wakefield butterfly
These butterflies used to be quite a rare sighting in the Durban South area
By Warren Dick
One just has to get one glimpse of this beautiful butterfly to know why they are named the Forest Queen, they are absolutely beautiful. The scientific name for this butterfly is Euxanthe Wakefieldi.
These butterflies used to be quite a rare sighting in the Durban South area, however they are becoming more popular as their chosen food plant spreads. The caterpillar of these butterflies feed exclusively on the Dune Soapberry (Deinbollia oblongifolia).
The Dune Soapberry is probably the best indigenous tree that you can plant if you want to attract butterflies to your garden. Several butterfly and moth species utilize this plant as a food plant, there are few other plants that can attract butterflies in such large numbers as the Dune Soapberry. These trees do not grow huge, getting to around two meters tall, this makes them very easy to manage.
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Although I have never seen a Forrest Queen butterfly in my garden, I have managed to find two caterpillars from this butterfly on Dune Soapberry trees in my garden, and breed them both through to adulthood, a male and a female butterfly. The males of this species have the most beautiful iridescent blue spots on black wings, while the female has white spots on black wings.
The caterpillars of the Forest Queen are rather slug like with the most amazing head gear that any adult bull would be proud to wear. I guess the head gear must help in self-defence as these caterpillars feel quite comfortable to sit out in plain sight, usually in the middle of the leaf of a Dune Soapberry.
These butterflies love to drink from fermented fruits as well as certain tree saps, they do not seem to like flowers.
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