The southern swallowtail, Papilio alexanor Esper, 1800 (Lepidoptera: Papilionidae): New butterfly species for the fauna of Serbia

This article reports the first finding of the Southern Swallowtail, Papilio alexanor Esper, 1800 (Lepidoptera: Papilionidae) in Serbia. The butterfly fauna of Serbia now comprises 202 species. A single male specimen was collected on May 9th, 2025, on a warm, dry serpentinite slope in southwestern Serbia, in the Zlatibor Nature Park, Čajetina municipality, Stublo village, in the lower part of the Uvac canyon, near the Uvac monastery. This species inhabits dry and warm shrublands and grasslands. Its distribution area is highly fragmented and extends from northern Spain, south-eastern France to the North-west and southernmost parts of Italy, the southern Balkans, Türkiye, the Caucasus, the Middle East and Central Asia. It is listed in Annex IV of the Habitats Directive (92/43/CEE), in Appendix II of the Bern Convention and is classified as near threatened (NT) in Europe according to the IUCN. A proposal for the Serbian name is "sokolov repak".