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Merry Swallowtail
Written By: William McReynolds | Issue: May 2024
A special welcome to the bugs of Spring, especially our state butterfly.
May has its namesake insect, the Mayfly, sleek of body with a long tail, gossamer wings and a short adult lifespan. The ubiquitous spring Mayfly, intriguing and structurally interesting, is not…pretty. June’s namesake insect, the June Bug, is outright ugly but feeds the bluebirds just as swarming Mayflies are fodder for fish and fowl. The “Mayfly Lure” is deadly trout bait for fly fishermen.
May also brings us our State Butterfly, the Eastern Tiger Swallowtail. This floating flower (Papilio glaucus) is a native American, appearing each spring and decorating forest and field through the summer and fall. Ranging along our Eastern Seaboard from Alabama to Canada, it is the Official State Butterfly of Alabama, Georgia, South and North Carolina, Delaware and, Google will tell you, the State Insect of Virginia.
The Tiger Swallowtail morphs through all the stages of butterfly life. It hatches from an egg into a brown and white caterpillar, later pupates, forms a chrysalis, hibernates during the cold months and emerges as a new creature, winged grace, with warm weather. The four “tiger stripes” on its forewings prompt its exalted name. Can this be the origin of the mythical, magical, Tinker Bell fairy?
The tiger in the photograph is the male of the species. The female is dimorphic and can appear either as black and yellow like the male but with sapphire blue spots at the base of the tail, or she is totally black. How magical is that?
The Tiger Swallowtail is just one part of the celebrated merriment of May. May brings joy in renewal as the butterfly emerges from the cocoon. An old English ballad told of “the merry, merry month of May.” Ed Haley redid the song in 1880 with those words in the opening lines. Later, Stephen Foster waxed lyrically about “whiling the hours away” with skies bright and hearts light “in the merry, merry month of May.” Life will not be this merry again until we get to the merriment of December.
Welcome May. This month emergent beauty and contagious renewal bring us forth like spring butterflies from winter’s cocoons.
Merry Swallowtail May.
