On Monday I managed to photograph this elusive Zebra Swallowtail butterfly (Eurytides marcellus) during a visit to Occoquan Bay National Wildlife Refuge. When the butterfly was in motion, I had no idea that it was damaged, but when it paused for a moment, it was immediately obvious that it was missing its tails.
Somehow the butterfly was able to compensate for their loss by adjusting its flight and its feeding behavior did not appear to be adversely affected. As we get older, we often worry about the things that we can no longer do as well as when we were younger, instead of adjusting our behavior to focus instead on all of the things that we are still possible.
Maybe we should take a cue from this damaged butterfly and live our lives positively, rather that wallow in our “what ifs…” or “if only…” mindsets.
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.
Mike Powell 
Nice post
Beautiful! Great photos, Mike. Thank you for the great message at the end in your last paragraph.
Beautiful butterfly photos, Mike, and good to know it was doing fine without its tail.
I completely agree.
Thanks, Nina.
Great advice!
Thanks, Molly. As Shakespeare famously wrote in Hamlet, “This above all: to thine own self be true, And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man”.
Yet again, as always, your photos and commentary are excellent and uplifting! As a rather worn out elderly human I can identify with this Zebra Swallowtailless butterfly. We both have had to adapt to our present limitations and keep going…this butterfly has mastered both.
“Advice For Life” has amidst their excellent collection of items a magnet and a bookmark featuring these words :
Advice From A Butterfly
Let your true colors show
Take yourself lightly
Look for the sweetness in life
Take time to smell the flowers
Treat yourself like a monarch!
Thank-you, Mr. Mike!!
Thanks so much again, Ellen, for your inspiring and uplifting words. I too feel like the somewhat tattered swallowtail at times, but very much try to follow the advice that you shared by trying to me my truest, most authentic self as often as I can (or at least as often as I dare). It turns out that others don’t really pay as much attention to us as we think that they do and even if they do, their opinions don’t really matter much at all.
The Zebra Swallowtail photos are wonderful, Mike and I love the Advice From A Butterfly, Ellen! Thanks to you both 🙂