Papilio Antimachus, ladies and gentlemen, might seem a humble specimen on the screen behind me. But it is the largest butterfly to herald from the African continent. So large, in fact, that you can forget your ordinary butterfly pins. If you wish to mount Papilio Antimachus, then you will need a set of grappling irons and a great deal of patience. I have harnessed a live specimen to the outside of this lecture hall, and afterwards we may cool ourselves in the flitsome shade and breeze of its marquee-like wings. If I can arrange with the Centre Zoologique de Senegal to keep their specimen until the end of the week, I suggest we drink our cocktails there.

One thing we have surely established this week is that butterflies have fantastically pompous names. No mere Derek for Papilio Antimachus, who takes his name from a Greek poet and grammarian who flourished briefly under Plato’s tutelage, around 400 BC. It is enough, however, to have been a Greek poet to have a butterfly named after you, for what little is known of Antimachus, writer of Thebais, is that he really wasn’t all that good. He was, admittedly, the founder of “learned” epic poetry, but next to Homer he tended to embarrass himself at parties. He was even the subject of mockery in contemporary works, and in Book XI of The Iliad, Homer has King Agamamnon kill his two sons Pisander and brave Hippolochus.
Harsh. But like yesterday’s Croesus Lydius, I think it is safe to say that the butterfly that takes his name affords some considerable consolation.
It is, however, something of a shame that Papilio Antimachus was not named after Mansa Kankan Mussa, King of Mali from 1306 to 1332. During his flamboyant reign his subjects built ships with sails of Papilio Antimachus wing, and sailed East to hitherto undiscovered lands. There he established a New World that has since been forgotten due to the fact that in his later years he became extremely absent minded and misplaced the entire continent. It has yet to be rediscovered, but it seems reasonable to conjecture that it might still exist, populated by descendants of Mali with their exquisite butterfly rigs.
If you are in any doubt as to the size of Papilio Antimachus (and frankly, I’d be surprised if you didn’t see it on your way in) then consider the caterpillar from which it springs. These beasts are easily mistaken for large tusked mammals and they are known to roam in heards across the African plains. Certain tribes bury their dead in fragmants of its chrysalis.

The Isle of Wight is far from the Egypt of the Biblical Era.
I’d say a couple of thousand miles and a few thousand years is pretty far, wouldn’t you?
But there were regular plagues.
Mini ones…
A couple of days each summer, always after rain, the flying ants come.
They pour out of thousands of underground nests, and millions of them, charged with the anty equivalent of testosterone, career drunkenly around the skies, the fields, the beaches, the streets and the houses, the pubs and the bedrooms, desperately looking for a shag.
My parents’ house has a small garden, and because it is bordered on both sides by car parks, it seems to have a disproportionately large number of hidden underground nests, and in the first hour after the rain, which I have always imagined drumming on the earth and waking the waiting hordes, they swarm in thick swirling columns of rising insects from the ground.
The plague only lasts for a day or so…swooping swallows and housemartins gorge on the insects, the drone ants themselves, not destined to fly for long, crash down, exhausted, and attempt to continue their quests on foot.
Hoverflies.
I know almost nothing about them apart from the fact that they are biological liars. Universally, well, okay, almost universally, insects with black and yellow stripes are giving the rest of Mother Nature’s children a kind and gentle warning that if they are thinking about lunch, they’ll have to deal with poison/stings/halitosis afterwards. Hoverflies have hijacked this gentleman’s agreement and sport the yellow and black livery to capitalise on that moment of hesitation in their predators and get the fruit out of town.
It would appear that humans are easily impressed by the black and yellow. The days when the swarms of hoverflies would swoop in on the wind, the beach was almost always deserted.
As a child I would stand in my swimming trunks behind my parents’ windbreak, pretending to be a professional tennis player, sporting a beach bat’n’ball bat as though it were the finest graphite composite racquet available. The wind would rush the hoverflies up and over the windbreak, and, as tens of them coasted on the lifted streamline, one or two every few seconds would recieve a piece of plywood to the head with an incredibly satisfying *thwack* and they would be hurled back to hit the woven plastic of the windbreak.
It was great fun, although I daresay, bad karma.

Don’t tread on an ant, he’s done nothing to you!
There might come a day when he’s treading on you!
Don’t tread on an ant, you’ll end up black and blue
You cut off his head, legs come looking for you!

By all the known rules of insect life, the above lyrics from the Adam and the Ants classic Antmusic are patently untrue. I’ve killed many an ant in my time – Bastard ants! I hate them! Die die die, you horrible filthy specimens! – and none of them have ever returned minus a head, yet at a size that’s big enough to crush the average human being under their spindly legs. (I do appreciate that if, during the night, I’m brutally slain in my bed by a seven-foot tall ant in a bad mood, I’m going to look very stupid indeed.)
Anyway, I refuse to take seriously anything that Adam and his dubious Ants happen to say, because I still remember the huge disappointment I felt when, as a naive ten-year-old, I first saw them on Top of the Pops in 1981. Yes, they may have worn the impressively stylish garb of dandy highwaymen and swashbuckling 18th-century princes, but were any of them dressed in large comedy ant outfits? Were they buffalo! They hadn’t even bothered to humiliate the drummer in such a way. Pah, call yourselves a pop group!
Dressing up as insects. It’s the way to impress the pop music-buying market. Trust me, they’ll all be doing it soon.

Dear Karen,
We were horrified to learn that your last meeting with us left you somewhat traumatised.
We hope you will not let a few of our less hospitable inhabitants discourage you from visiting us again. Please allow us to apologise on their behalf.
The spider must not have received the tourism board memo, although that is no excuse because the sharks and snakes did make themselves obligingly scarce.
We know that we house some of the most dangerous and unpleasant creatures in the world, but Queenslanders aside, most of us really aren’t that bad.
If you can find it in yourself to see us again one day, we will ensure that you are met by our most charming tour guides and your very own broom handle as a welcome gift.
Yours sincerely,
Australia.

*see john howard? it’s not that hard to say. try it. sorry. sorr-rree. ok, now you practise while i go round up the indigenous community ok? sorry. sorry. there’s a good boy.

Dolly Parton memorably sang Love Is Like A Butterfly (lyrics). Sadly, history does not record how Ms Parton reacted upon discovering exactly what those cruel, heartless butterfly catchers actually do to butterflies – although her follow-up single, Love Is Like A … Oh No! The Butterfly Net! Oh God! THE PIN! THE PIN!, which was performed to a dissonant industral soundtrack provided by Throbbing Gristle instead of the normal twanging steel guitars, was one of Dolly’s few notable commercial failures.

Due to an error in the timetabling of the Symposium I accidentally delivered two lectures yesterday. Atherton Frisby was furious. In consequence I’m afraid this means that Dr. Steven Badgett’s lecture, Yeats’ Dung Beetles, has been cancelled. I was really rather looking forward to Badgett’s study, and I shall do my utmost to persuade the organisers to find time for this lecture later in the week.
But in the mean time, I must press on with my Introduction to Lepidoptery. Ah, sweet przepustnica! Today we have been all the way to the Brazilian rain forests in order to give you Croesus Lydius.

In order to explain this flame winged beauty we must travel far back in time to ancient Lydia, situated in Western Asia Minor on the banks of the river Galis. This land was ruled by King Croesus between 560 and 546 BC, and it is believed that it was the Lydians who minted the world’s first coins. Wise Solon, the Greek giver of Laws travelled to Sardis, capital of Lydia, and was challenged by King Croesus to name the happiest man he had ever met. Solon named a few men of little consequence who had died and in so doing invoked the king’s fury.
“Dost thou count my happiness as nothing?” He asked, to which Solon replied, “I count no man happy until his death, for no man can know what the gods may have in store for him.”
If we turn to Chapter 30 of Ezekiel we see that the gods had plenty of grief in store for him:

And the sword shall come upon Egypt, and great pain shall be in
Ethiopia, when the slain shall fall in Egypt, and they shall take away
her multitude, and her foundations shall be broken down.
Ethiopia, and Libya, and Lydia, and all the mingled people, and Chub, and the men of the land that is in league, shall fall with them by the sword.

See that? “and Lydia” – not only was King Croesus’ mighty empire to fall, but it was to do so as an afterthought to some other business in Ethipia. In consequence his lands would be deemed worthy of but a passing mention in the Old Testament. Croesus was not to be named at all.
Likewise, if we turn to Shakespeare, Lydia gets a couple of paltry mentions in Anthony and Cleopatra, but again only as an afterthought (Act III Scene VI, “He gave the stablishment of Egypt; made her / Of lower Syria, Cyprus, Lydia, / Absolute queen.”). The king himself is nowhere to be seen.
Things do not look good for King Croesus of Lydia. Not, that is, until his nameswake was discovered flitting nonchalantly from flower to flower in a time before deforestation hit the Latin American continent. Hail Croesus Lydius! Praise be to your proud black thorax and yellow abdomen. Your scented hindwing shall be the talk of European lepidopterists when you are thence netted and pinned in a striking black frame.
You can buy yourself one for only $115 from Bug in a Box and pay due respect to the first minter of coins.

Spider-Man 2 – Deleted scenes #6
A long-distance telephone call.

Bruce Wayne: So, you heard what Spider-Man’s been up to recently?
Clark Kent: Nope.
Wayne: You sound really interested.
Kent: I am, I am, go on.
Wayne: Well, do you remember a scientist at Empire State called Octavius?
Kent: Vaguely, yes.
Wayne: It turns out that …
Kent: Hang on, Bruce, I’ve got another call coming in … hello?
Bruce Banner: Hi, Clark, how are you?
Kent: Fine, but I’ve got Bruce Wayne on the other line. I’ll put it on speaker.
Banner: Hi, Bruce.
Wayne: Hi, Bruce.
Kent: So, go on, Bruce, what happened to Parker?
Banner: I don’t know, Clark.
Wayne: No, me Bruce, not you, Bruce.
Banner: Oh, right.
Kent: You guys crack me up.
Wayne: Shut up, Clark. Well, after all the trouble with the Green Goblin, Parker wanted a quiet life, but …
Banner: Green Goblin?
Kent: You remember him, right?
Banner: Not really.
Kent: He was this Green …
Wayne: … Goblin, he gets the picture, Clark. Well, some experiment went wrong to Dr Octavius and he turned into …
Kent: … Dr Octopus, with these tentacles going all over the place, it was mad.
Wayne: Clark, you said you hadn’t heard.
Kent: I just forgot. When you started, it all came back to me.
Wayne: But I’m telling a story.
Kent: Okay, okay.
Wayne: Just let me tell my story, yeah?
Kent: Sorry, Bruce.
Banner: Hey that’s okay, I hadn’t heard yet.
Kent: I meant the other Bruce.
Banner: Oh, okay.
Wayne: Anyway. Parker’s been dealing with a lot of problems there, and I thought …
Kent: Just a second, Bruce, got another call …
Wayne: Dammit, you supertw…
Kent: Hello?
Murdock: Hi, Clark, how are you?
Kent: Good, good. How you been, Matt?
Murdock: Not too bad, thanks.
Kent: Hey, I’ll put you on speakerphone. Everybody, it’s Matt.
Wayne: Hi, Matt.
Banner: Hey, Matt.
Murdock: Hi, guys. So, what are you talking about?
Banner: Well, Bruce said something about green tentacles.
Murdock: Sounds intense.
Kent: And a goblin with eight arms.
Wayne: I’m never going to finish this story.
Kent: No, go on, Bruce, go on.
Wayne: Sod it, just read these: 1 • 2 • 3 • 4 • 5.

Today I give you Agrius Narcissus, an insect held by many experts to be the most beautiful of its kind now living. I’m not sure I agree, but its carmine banding is a splendour to behold. The specimen I received for the purposes of this lecture was still alive on delivery, but a few hours in an airtight jar saw to that.

Narcissus, as you likely know, was the son of Endymion, the man who wisely chose to sleep forever, and Selene, A.K.A. the moon. Strange parentage indeed, and it’s little wonder he grew up with such strange preoccupations. There is another school of thought that holds that his true parents were Cephisus and Liriope, about whom very little is known.

Since beauty is of the essence of today’s featured butterfly, I thought we should look at the word butterfly in other languages, to consider which tongue best caresses this extraordinary insect.

The Dutch rather curiously give us vlinder – not a very promising start, but nobody expected great things from this language. A more obvious place to look for comely words is surely French, where we find that papillon is their word. Not bad, not bad at all. But we wouldn’t want the French to win, now, would we? Despite my feelings towards the language I must admit a fondness for German’s Schmetterling. The specimen trapped in an old Branston pickle jar in my study was certainly schmetterling like crazy for a while this afternoon. Now she’s well and truely Schmettered.

From Italy we have farfalla, which tastes especially nice in a buttery sauce with crushed chilli and garlic. The double f lends the word a fluttery air that suits our winged subject, but Schmetterling is still my favourite thus far.

In Hungarian we have pillangó (pronounce both ls or suffer incomprehension). Better still we have ejszaki pillangó, meaning naughty lady of the night (or literally, night butterfly). See how she flits from flower to flower?

No, that just won’t do. The German word remains most appropriate. We must send out word to other languages. We need reinforcements!

A robust borboleta answers the call from Portugal. Too fat, I say, more a beetle word, or a worrisome canker pig uprooting shrubs. No, no, no. Mariposa? The Spanish make a bold retort, but the Schmetterlings still have it. The Swedes have the nicest word on the page, for they give us fjäril, but I can hardly make a victor of a word I couldn’t dream of pronouncing.

And so it falls to the Poles to see off the bedevilled Schmetterlings. You can trust the Slavs to carve a fine word from the granite of their vocabulary. The most beautiful word for butterfly in the entire world (with the exception of all those presently not considered):

Przepustnica.

Ah. A joy to articulate. It might look difficult, but if you make the effort, I think it is a word to savour. The rz combination is pronounced much like the s in measure. Once you have surmounted the hurdle presented by prz the rest trips out as follows: ep-ust-neat-sa.

Say it again.

Przepustnica.

Ah, Narcissus. Oh, Agrius. Ladies and Gentlemen, I think I need to go and lie down. If you have any suggestions from languages that didn’t make contention, please leave them in my pigeonhole. I’m afraid I’m not in the mood for questions.

Przepustnica.