(040329 revised, 040329 created)

The Common Mormon

Common names of butterfly species are usually descriptive and the Mormon butterflies are aptly named. Harish Gaonkar, of the Natural History Museum in London, recently wrote that "the origins of giving common English names to organisms, particularly butterflies for tropical species started in India around the mid 19th century . . . The naming of Mormons evolved slowly. I think the first to get such a name was the Common Mormon (Papilio polytes), because it had three different females, a fact that could only have been observed in the field, and this they did in India. The name obviously reflected the . . . Mormon sect in America, which as we know, practiced polygamy." (After Mary Harris, Christina Reiman Butterfly Wing Curator, Iowa State University, Nov. 26, 2003)