PS 84-243
Characteristics of flower-visiting, adult Papilio glaucus (Eastern Tiger Swallowtails, Papilionidae)
Adult butterflies’ feeding at flowers is a familiar sight; however, the specific characteristics of such butterflies remain little known. The aim of this study is to document the ages, body wear, color morphs, sex ratio, wing wear, and other aspects of adult Papilio glaucus, a common North American species, that are nectar-feeding from flowers. Further, this study tests the hypothesis that P. glaucus predators remove its hindwing tails before they remove other wing areas. Although P. glaucus is the prey of some bird species and can fly fast and erratically, it is usually easy to capture its feeding adults with a net. I captured and individually marked 1,027 female and male P. glaucus that primarily visited flowers of Cirsium vulgare (Bull Thistle) and Buddleja davidii (Butterflybush), during six flight seasons during 2005–2012, in a naturalistic suburban garden of the Wehawken Nature Preserve, Maryland. Immediately after capturing a butterfly for the first time, I marked it, recorded its characteristics on a data form, and photographed it. Immediately after recapturing a butterfly, I recorded its characteristics and re-photographed it.
Results/Conclusions
About 95% of the P. glaucus were not seen again in the study area after their initial capture days; however, 5 females and 41 males returned to the site during an interval of 1–19 days post marking. Black-morph and yellow-morph females comprised 28%, and males comprised 72% of the sample. About 1% of the butterflies had developmentally deformed wings. A few butterflies had abdominal injuries, lost parts of their antennae, lost parts of one or more legs, or a combination of these things, possibly primarily as a result of predator attacks. The butterflies showed a wide range of wing wear. Although hindwing tails are large, conspicuous, and might be predator-deflection features, they were not usually the first parts of wings damaged or removed. About 1% of the butterflies had holes in their wings, and about 4% carried spider silk on their bodies, wings, or both. Papilio glaucus is a good model for learning about the characteristics of adult, nectar-feeding butterflies because its adults are large and relatively easy to capture, mark, and photograph. Investigation of other populations of this species and of other butterfly species would contribute to a more complete knowledge of features of flower-feeding adult butterflies.