It is one of only two butterflies on the IUCN's 100 Most Endangered Species in the World, the other being Actinote zikani.

[6] The aeneas group members are P. burchellanus is a rare species or, if it is a subspecies, an evolutionarily significant unit, of butterfly (Lepidoptera, Papilionoidea) that lives in a very few areas in central Brazil.

Its close relation with a highly peculiar environment (gallery or riparian forest along rivers running through the cerrado landscape) restricts its occurrence to a few points.

The frailty of its habitat, towards the increasing of loss of natural environments, makes it a target prone to elimination.

P. burchellanus is associated with riparian forests in Brazil, in which these rare butterflies tend to inhabit narrow streams among sectors in which the river is cut off by the forest canopy.