Butterflies: Swallowtail

Butterflies: Swallowtail [1]

My younger brother, Ned, is an avid fisherman and lepidopterist. Among his favorite butterflies are the swallowtails. As a species there are over 500 members of what we call the swallowtail family. What is cool about them? First of all they are very large and easy to see. They seem to float on their wings for extended periods of time. They are very colorful. And they seem to propogate well all over most of the US. Although they are most abundant in tropical climates, they inhabit every continent on Earth save Antarctica. Interestingly the swallowtail family includes the largest butterflies in the world, called birdwing butterflies from the insect genus Ornithoptera.^[1]

Swallowtails wings have a forked appearance in some of the swallowtails’ hindwings, which can be seen when the butterfly is resting with its wings spread. The forked appearance has given rise to the common name swallowtail.

When Linnaeus was choosing a name for this genus of insects, he chose Papilio, which is Latin for “Butterfly.” The French word papillion translates as butterfly as well. For the specific epithets of the genus, Linnaeus applied the names of Greek figures to the swallowtails. The type species: Papilio machaon honored Machaon, one of the sons of Asclepius, mentioned in the Iliad. Further, the species Papilio homerus is named after the Greek poet who wrote both the Iliad and the Odyssey, Homer.