It is a loner, the black and white striped butterfly at the bottom left. This one flies in a swarm of light yellow sulfur butterflies Protographium agesilaus along the banks of the Manicoré River, in the Brazilian part of the Amazon rainforest.
kite swallowtail is called the black and white butterfly in English, which translates as ‘kite swallowtail’. The species is known for often flying together with sulfur moths, which, like the cabbage white that is common in the Netherlands, belong to the family of whites or the Pieridae. It is safer for the swallowtails to seek company than to fly all by themselves: then they are much easier prey.
The butterflies fly from waterhole to waterhole, to drink and to take in necessary minerals such as sodium. For that reason they sometimes drink turtle and crocodile tears.
The photo was taken during a recent Greenpeace expedition through Brazil to draw attention to the importance of the Amazon rainforest. The Manicoré is a tributary of the Madeira River, which itself then flows into the Amazon.