NC State Butterfly

Eastern Tiger Swallowtail

Journaling reads: Mark found the injured butterfly by the road, figuring a car hit it. We tried to save it, but it didn't survive. I thought it interesting that the underside of the butterfly is actually a bit more patterned and colorful than the upperside.

State Butterfly of North Carolina: Eastern Tiger Swallowtail

by Michelle Czaikowski Underhill and Amy Kemp
NC Government & Heritage Library, 2017.

The North Carolina General Assembly designated the Eastern tiger swallowtail (Papilio glaucus) as the official State butterfly of the State of North Carolina. The bill was ratified on June 11, 2012 and approved on June 15, 2012.

Selection as the State Butterfly

The Eastern Tiger Swallowtail was selected because it can be found in all 100 counties of North Carolina and is easy to locate and recognize.

About twenty-eight other states either have official state butterflies or have butterflies as their official state insect. Delaware, Georgia, South Carolina, and Virginia all either have the Eastern tiger swallowtail as their official state butterfly or as their official state insect.

About the Eastern Tiger Swallowtail

Eastern Tiger Swallowtails are yellow with black stripes, and have a wingspan of three to six inches. They can be found in many habitats, including woods, fields, near rivers and creeks, or in gardens. The butterfly larvae eat leaves, while adults eat flower nectar.

The female Eastern Tiger Swallowtail will lay single green eggs on leaves, which then hatch into caterpillars. The Caterpillars are brown and white when they are young, but as they grow they turn green with orange and black false eyespots. These spots fool predators into thinking the caterpillar is much larger than it truly is.

The Eastern tiger swallowtail is native to North America and is generally considered the first North American butterfly to have been drawn. The first drawing of it was by John White. White was an artist, cartographer, and is also known as the governor of the Roanoke Island colony that came to be known as the "Lost Colony."

This information taken from ncpedia.com

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