It's a Bird!! It's a Plane!! It's..It's........a Butterfly??!?

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

As I was wrapping up my bicycle ride this evening, I saw ahead of me what appeared to be a strange bird with a bizarre flight pattern. When I got closer, I saw that it was without a doubt the largest butterfly I have ever seen in my life. So I whipped out my cell phone with the crappy camera while cursing myself for not bringing the Nikon. I did, however manage to get this shot:

After getting home I got online and found the Giant Swallowtail:

However, everything I can find online says that the Giant Swallowtail’s wingspan maxes out at about 6 inches. This guy was almost a foot across!! Is he a mutant? Did I find the Goliath of the swallowtail word? Or is it something else entirely?

I feel privileged to have seen something like this. It made my day!

2

Wow, even without anything to scale it against, it looks enormous!

3

It’s gorgeous, isn’t it? I can only speak in reference to my region (upper Midwest US), but it has been a banner year for butterflies and moths here. All of these critters I’ve seen this year—and I mow a 2-acre lawn every week, so I see thousands—have been considerably larger and more robust appearing than usual. It could be that you just came across the Shaquille O’Neal of Giant Swallowtails.

ETA: I can’t wait for woolly bear season this year!

Of course, it could also have been an Iranian stealth drone butterfly equipped with a spy camera…

…but I’m voting really gigantic Giant Swallowtail.

4

Yeah, it’s gotta be a swallowtail. That is really neat!

5

I had an extensive insect collection when I was a kid, including a Giant Swallowtail. They weren’t nearly as common as the Black/Tiger/Zebra Swallowtails, in fact the one I caught was the only one I ever saw. Truly beautiful. But I can’t imagine one as large as the one you saw.

6

With one that big, the butterfly effect starts to seem quite plausible. In order to avoid the butterfly effect, I say we nuke it from orbit. It’s the only way to be sure. :wink:

7

You need to google mothman… he warns of bad events about to come… run, run now, as fast as you can!

8

I ran across this while reading Bob Ducca’s detective work, and I’m shocked that no one commented on the fact that that’s a FUCKING DEAD AND (poorly) MOUNTED BUTTERFLY!!!. Mr. singular and I collected butterflies regularly in our thirties, and that thing is deader than umkay’s morality. Amateur.

9

That figures. With that, I’m closing this thread, too.