Many cats love catnip and some of them are tigers – Eastern Tiger Swallowtail Butterflies (Papilio glaucus), that is. Here we see a female yellow tiger on blooming catnip (Nepeta cataria).
We know it’s a female by the blue dots on the edges of her hind wings (not easily seen in some of these images); if a butterfly of this shape were all black or virtually black, it would be a female tiger as well.
Tiger Swallowtails reportedly are not originally native to Maine, but have become naturalized in the eastern and southeastern United States. They are the state butterfly (or insect) of Alabama, Delaware, Georgia, North and South Carolina, and Virginia.
When they are flitting among flowers that they like, such as catnip, these tigers are great target practice for photographers who want to increase their eye-hand coordination to “shoot” erratically flying or moving things:
(Brooklin, Maine)