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Eastern
Tiger Swallowtail Butterfly - Papilio
glaucus
Butterflies and Moths (Lepidoptera) / Butterflies
(Papilionoidea) / Swallowtails (Papilionidae) / Papilioninae / Papilio /
Eastern Tiger Swallowtail
Live adult butterflies photographed at Winfield Mounds Forest
Preserve, Winfield Illinois, and Alpharetta, Georgia, USA. |
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The Eastern Tiger Swallowtail is one of
the most familiar butterflies here in the American midwest. Common in forests and along streams, the tiger swallowtail is equally at home in
urban gardens. It is an ardent flower fancier, and provides ample photo opportunities while
nectaring. The males are always yellow, but females can be either yellow or all black.
Actually, the
black form
female swallowtails look as if they are standard yellow and someone dusted them with black
spray-paint.
It is thought they are mimicking the distasteful
Pipevine Swallowtail, and the
presence of the black female form indicates the abundance of the
species it mimics. This does agree with my observations. Where I was
shooting butterflies near Alpharetta, Georgia, the population of
Pipevines is considerably higher than here, near Chicago, nearly all
the females I encountered were the black variety; I've only ever
seen one of the darker females here.
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| Similar species:
Western Tiger swallowtail, Giant Swallowtail, Two-tailed
swallowtail. Life Cycle: Large eggs are pale green,
globular. Caterpillar starts out brown and white, mimics bird
droppings. Mature caterpillar grows to 50mm (2"), is green with big
orange and black eyespots at front. Chrysalis overwinters. host
plants are mostly broadleaf trees such as cottonwood, willow, birch
and ash, polar and cherry. One to three broods, depending on
latitude.
Habitat: Deciduous woods, forest clearings and edges, open
woodlands, gardens and parks.
Range: The most widespread of
the tiger swallowtails, it lives from Alaska and Canada to the
Atlantic, southeast of Rocky Mountains to the Gulf of Mexico.
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