[1] The forewings are black with dark veining and green scales.

The undersides are brown, turning white distally with dark veining.

[1] Food plants include species of citrus, prickly ash, cork trees, trifoliate orange, rue, and Japanese skimmia.

[3] Using the species as a model to investigate the iridescent colour evolution, phylogeography, and the evolution of swallowtail butterflies a chromosome scale genome has been sequenced, the final assembly being 421.52 Mb in size, with 15,375 protein-coding genes and 30 chromosomes (29 autosomes and 1 Z sex chromosome).

[6] Phylogenetic analysis of this data indicating that P. bianor separated from a common ancestor of swallowtails ~23.69–36.04 million years ago.