When you sit on a mower for a number of hours each week you have a lot of time to think, but, what to think about? Last week Mother Nature helped me out. She sent an eastern tiger swallowtail butterfly to keep me company. It was a male. Yep, you can tell the difference between a male and a female eastern tiger swallowtail butterfly.
Butterflies, along with their cousins, the moths, belong to the insect order “Lepidoptera” which translates into “scale-wing”. It is believed that butterflies evolved from the moths and were present as long ago as 100 million years, which would mean they co-existed with the dinosaurs for about 35 million years. According to most recent studies, they originated in Central and North America and through time migrated to every continent on Earth except Antarctica.
Th…