Queen Alexandra's birdwing

The Queen Alexandra's Birdwing (known as the Birdwing prior to and the Birdwing Butterfly prior to ) is a bug in the. The Queen Alexandra's Birdwing first appeared in and has appeared in all subsequent games. They are the largest butterfly in the series.

In the games that the Queen Alexandra's Birdwing appear in, it is a rare bug that the player can encounter, and can be found flying around flowers. In, it can be caught from spring to the start of fall.

Donating to the museum
As with all insects in the, the Birdwing Butterfly can be donated to the museum followed by a short monologue by Blathers, the curator.

In
Upon being donated, the butterfly can be found in the room of the bug exhibit with the Rafflesia. The exhibit has this to say about the Birdwing Butterfly:

In
When donated, the Queen Alexandra's birdwing flies around the butterfly room in the museum's bug exhibit.

Commissioning a model
In, if the player brings three Queen Alexandra's Birdwings to Flick to commission a model, he will say the following:

"R-really? You want a sculpture of a Queen Alexandra's birdwing? The angel that flaps among us? These glorious spirits are like lenses through which we can see the purity of the Infested Realms. I promise this will be my sublime-est masterpiece, and I shall title it The Grand Queen Alexandra's Birdwing!"

Real-world information
The Queen Alexandra's birdwing (Ornithoptera alexandrae) is considered the largest butterfly in the world, named after Queen Alexandra, wife of King Edward VII of the United Kingdom. It was discovered by Albert Stewart Meek, who was employed by Lord Walter Rothschild (who named it) in 1907, in Papua New Guinea. It was shot down using a shotgun, but its early stages were discovered and bred through to get to this stage. The female birdwing has a wingspan of up to 31cm, while the male (which appears in game) has a smaller wingspan of up to 26cm. The birdwing flies quite high in the rainforest, making it hard to catch, which is the main reason hunters shoot them with shotguns. The birdwing in Animal Crossing also flies higher than usual butterflies, a reference to its flying habits in the real world.

The birdwing is endangered, threatened by habitat loss. Most of Papua New Guinea's rainforests were destroyed during a volcanic eruption, wiping out parts of the birdwing's habitat.