Spring Swallowtail

by Darren Fisher

Title

Spring Swallowtail

Artist

Darren Fisher

Medium

Photograph - Photography/ Digital Art

Description

A beautiful Swallowtail and Azalea blooms on a beautiful Spring day. The bright colors with an added texture and digital effects to give the photo the look of a painting really makes this piece pop.
Swallowtail butterflies are large, colorful butterflies in the family Papilionidae, and include over 550 species.Though the majority are tropical, members of the family inhabit every continent except Antarctica. The family includes the largest butterflies in the world, the birdwing butterflies of the genus Ornithoptera.[1]

Swallowtails have a number of distinctive features; for example, the papilionid caterpillar bears a repugnatorial organ called the osmeterium on its prothorax. The osmeterium normally remains hidden, but when threatened, the larva turns it outward through a transverse dorsal groove by inflating it with fluid.[2]

The forked appearance of the swallowtails' hind wings, which can be seen when the butterfly is resting with its wings spread, gave rise to the common name swallowtail. As for its formal name, Linnaeus chose Papilio for the type genus, as Papilio is Latin for 'butterfly'. For the specific epithets of the genus, Linnaeus applied the names of Greek heroes to the swallowtails. The type species: Papilio machaon honoured Machaon, one of the sons of Asclepius, mentioned in the Iliad.

Uploaded

April 8th, 2016

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