Swallowtail butterfly passed in a pupal diapause stage. As swallowtail butterflies are large, colorful, and attractive, they were once targeted by butterfly collectors. The largest of these, the birdwing butterflies are particularly sought after and are cultured in butterfly farms for the purpose of collectors. Many members of the family feed as larvae on plants of the citrus family, Rutaceae. Some of these attractive butterflies are therefore considered pests in citrus orchards. The Oregon swallowtail is the state insect of Oregon. The eastern tiger swallowtail is the state insect of Virginia and the state butterfly of Georgia, Delaware, and South Carolina. The
Holdrian comma fact that the Ancient Greeks (or at least Boethius) believed that in the Pythagorean tuning the tone could be divided in nine commas, four of which forming the diatonic semitone and five the chromatic semitone. If all these commas are exactly of the same size, there results an octave of 5 tones + 2 diatonic semitones, 5 × 9 + 2 × 4 = 53 equal commas. Holder attributes the division of the octave in 53 equal parts to Nicolas Mercator, who would have named the 1/53 part of the octave the "Artificial Comma". Mercator's comma is a name often