Eastern Tiger Swallowtail

Here's an Eastern Tiger Swallowtail I met. Notice that the right "tail" of the wing has been torn off. I'd like to tell you "you should've seen the other guy" as though this was incurred in a fight with a rival, but I doubt there's a butterfly with the arsenal to do anything like this. For that matter, it's unclear that any of our arthropod predators (e.g. robberflies, dragonflies, mantises, centipedes, spiders) would do this sort of damage; I suspect that this is the sort of damage you would get from a bird beak. (A bat might also do this, though I wouldn't expect this butterfly to be active at night when bats are most active.)

August 18, 2020 at Duke Farms


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