Yesterday, while hanging out the laundry (by the way, about 20 minutes later, we had a terrific downpour…eh, this happens to me all the time; in fact, if your neighbourhood/town/country is going through a drought, just invite me over to do some laundry…it will rain immediately, and the crops will be saved…), I dropped an item on the lower terrace, which is adjacent to our back garden. As I was going down the terrace stairs to retrieve it, I saw a rather large something fluttering about our enormous lavender plant. I took a closer look…and there was the most extraordinary butterfly I have ever seen, certainly in Italy. I dashed inside to grab my camera and spent the next 15-20 minutes (or more) alternately taking photographs and standing still to admire this gorgeous insect.

But wait a sec. This didn’t look like any of the butterflies that I have seen in Italy. Since I am not a lepidopterologist, though, I had to wait until later to do some research on my butterflying friend. I was lucky. I described her (him?) as a zebra-like butterfly and, sure enough, almost immediately came up with what must be the species: a zebra swallowtail butterfly, or Eurytides marcellus, see: http://tinyurl.com/mwanyu It is also known as the paw paw butterfly, since the caterpillar likes to feed on young and tender paw paw plants (coincidentally, paw paw is used as an alternative cancer treatment, see http://tinyurl.com/nkfxcg…)…

But get this: according to various butterfly websites, my little friend lives exclusively in Northern America, mostly in the eastern United States, north-east Mexico and south-east Canada. I found no mention of sightings anywhere in Europe… So how did this marvellous critter land in my garden? Is this the ONLY sighting of the zebra swallowtail butterfly in all of Europe?

My friend had a slight injury to her left wing but otherwise seemed fine. She certainly drank an enormous amount of nectar from my lavender blooms, using her proboscis, or long flexible tongue (see photos). After taking about a million photographs, I went to call Stefano and my parents. Stefano arrived with his super duper camera and took several photos, too. When it began raining, though, we had to go back into the house.

And to think that if I hadn’t dropped something on the lower terrace, I/we would have missed seeing and photographing this lovely creature…as my post title reads, sometimes things are meant to be…

Well, I just hope that nothing has happened to her (our neighbourhood is filled with butterfly predators, unfortunately…), and that she will be back in my garden later today. The sun is out today, and I won’t do any laundry…