Escapee i/d

[Jack Harrison]

I have just been sent these pictures taken about eight years ago in Great Yarmouth.
Clearly it is an escape from a butterfly house and the name of the species is on the tip of my tongue but I just can’t recall it.

Jack

[Vince Massimo]

Common Crow I think Jack (Euploea core).

Vince

[Padfield]

That's what she wanted you to think, Vince, but in reality she's Hypolimnas bolina - the great eggfly - mimicking one of the crows (Euploea).

Guy

[Vince Massimo]

Sneaky!

[Sooty]

H. bolina females are so variable! Here are two I photographed on consecutive days at sites only about 5kms apart in Darwin, Australia during March 2018 :





The second one was absolutely enormous.

[Jack Harrison]

Thanks. The Great Eggfly, Hypolimnas bolina.

As to origin I have a thought.  There are, nor have there been, any butterfly houses in the area.

Could it have arrived by ship from say India?  Journey time from Mumbai apparently one month at 10 knots so at 14 / 15 knots, perhaps only three weeks.  Fully grown caterpillar among the cargo, then pupated and butterfly emerged just as ship arrived Great Yarmouth, a mere few hundred metres from my friend's house and his buddleia.

Jack

[Jack Harrison]

Solved

A Sea Life Centre in Great Yarmouth had a small butterfly house that had been thought to have closed prior to my friend’s sighting. However, it did in fact close about one year afterwards. The sighting was just under two kilometres from “Amazonia”.

Thanks for the help and i/d. Mike B is also grateful to all who helped solve his mystery.

Jack