Tiger Swallowtail Butterflies, West Kennebunk ME, Puddling.

Our extended family had a Memorial Day cookout at my sister-in-law’s home across town from us yesterday. When we drove in, I immediately saw some butterfly action on her freshly seeded front lawn. It was hard to miss. Three bright, fresh Tiger Swallowtails were mud puddling on an otherwise undistinguished spot of soil. As you see from the photo it was moist but not wet. Given puddling behavior of butterflies in general, it is safe to say these, and several others I saw on the spot over 15 minutes, were all males. And again, given the situation at my in-laws, it is safe to say that their cat had chosen this exact spot to urinate sometime earlier that day. Male butterflies are attracted to the soil salts in damp earth. They drink the fluids and force them rapidly though their bodies extracting minerals which they then, at least in some cases, excrete during mating with the female and present as a gift. The processes seems to increase an individual male’s reproductive success, and the minerals may help in sperm production. The male’s gift might be his way of saying “Look how salty my sperm is! Good stuff here!” No one knows for sure. Urine, of course, is particularly high in sodium and ammonia, both of which are prized by male butterflies. And since the puddling area was so restricted here, and I doubt anyone else in the household was out on the front lawn that morning releaving his or her self, I do suspect the cat 🙂

That is probably more than you really wanted to know about these beautiful butterflies. They were all about as fresh and bright as I have ever seen. I suspect they were no more than a few days old. Even-so, at least one had a large section of that bright hindwing, including the tail on that side, missing, probably due to an encounter with a bird…though I can not rule out the cat on that front either.

Nikon P900 at 550mm equivalent field of view. 1/250th @ f5 @ ISO 100. Processed in Lightroom.