Shaping SF Talk: The Tigers of Market Street: Our Largest Butterfly

Not long after the transit tunnels of Muni and Bart went in below Market Street in the ’70s, a San Franciscan butterfly — the Western Tiger Swallowtail (Papilio rutulus) moved into an ecosystem freshly lined with one of her host trees: the London Plane sycamore (Plantanus acerifolia). She lays eggs on this tree and much of the creature’s lifecycle has played out for years unheralded by the thousands who walk below this canopy daily. As the city re-imagines our grandest boulevard with the Better Market Street campaign, come this evening and learn of a creature that seems to be keeping up with how radically we’ve altered our landscape and add your two cents to this fascinating convergence of city coexistence. Lepidopterists and artists Amber Hasselbring and Liam O’Brien will “tell the tale of a swallow-tail” and propose novel ideas of connecting our species with this species. Co-sponsored by Nature in the City.