Papilio sosia

Papilio sosia, the medium green-banded swallowtail, is a butterfly of the family Papilionidae. It is found in the Afrotropical realm. The species was first described by Walter Rothschild in 1903.

Description
Forewing above in cellules 1 b—8 with distinct, small, usually double submarginal dots, but beneath without large submarginal spots; the median band formed almost as in nireus, though the spot in cellule 2 covers the base of the cellule, but is more produced anally than the spot in 1 c, which does not reach the cell. — Sierra Leone to the Congo region and Uganda. The median band is straight and regular and never less than 1 cm in cell lb of the forewing, nearly always much wider.

Biology
The larva feeds on Zanthoxylum and Citrus.

Subspecies
Subspecies include:
 * P. s. sosia (Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Ivory Coast, Ghana, Togo, Benin, southern Nigeria, western Cameroon)
 * P. s. pulchra Berger, 1950 (Cameroon, Gabon, Congo, Central African Republic, northern Angola, Congo Republic)
 * P. s. debilis Storace, 1951 (Uganda, northwestern Tanzania)

Taxonomy
Papilio sosia belongs to a clade called the nireus species group with 15 members. The pattern is black with green or blue bands and spots and the butterflies, although called swallowtails, they lack tails with the exception of Papilio charopus and Papilio hornimani. The clade members are:


 * Papilio aristophontes Oberthür, 1897
 * Papilio nireus Linnaeus, 1758
 * Papilio charopus Westwood, 1843
 * Papilio chitondensis de Sousa & Fernandes, 1966
 * Papilio chrapkowskii Suffert, 1904
 * Papilio chrapkowskoides Storace, 1952
 * Papilio desmondi van Someren, 1939
 * Papilio hornimani Distant, 1879
 * Papilio interjectana Vane-Wright, 1995
 * Papilio manlius Fabricius, 1798
 * Papilio microps Storace, 1951
 * Papilio sosia Rothschild & Jordan, 1903
 * Papilio thuraui Karsch, 1900
 * Papilio ufipa Carcasson, 1961
 * Papilio wilsoni Rothschild, 1926