Common Crow

The Common Crow Euploea core is abundant and widespread, occuring from Australia to India. It is a largish dark brown and white butterfly that can often be seen cruising nonchalantly through the air in eastern Australia. It can afford to be insouciant because it is full of toxins absorbed from the plants it ate as a caterpillar. As a teenager I often looked for and found their extraordinary gilded or silvered chrysalises on Oleander Nerium oleander. Like other Danaids (the milkweed munching monarch, tiger and crow subfamily of butterflies), it is migratory, and overwinters in large aggregations in the tropical north.