Female Eastern Tiger Swallowtail: Not quite light form and not quite dark form

danielj

August 9th, 2008 at 12:00 am

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really really need to identify, i think it may be unknown
I have looked everywhere, all on your website, every website with swallow tails, I CANT FIND IT ANYWHERE! please help! I live in Vermont so there is only a few species of swallowtails around here in concord VT.
kyleigh phelps

tiger swallowtail lightdark Female Eastern Tiger Swallowtail: Not quite light form and not quite dark form

Hi Kyleigh,
We believe this is a female Eastern Tiger Swallowtail, Papilio glaucus. The female Eastern Tiger Swallowtail has both a light form and a dark form. BugGuide has one photo of an intermediate, but the dark areas are close to the center of the body. We believe that you have one of these intermediate forms, but we relish a true expert confirming our suspicions. If we are correct, you have a truly unique find.

im confused, intermediate? So its a little bit between the two, the dark form and light form? It is very unique, and thank you so much for helping, is there any other source you could give me to verify your findings? Thanks

Somehow, additional searching on BugGuide revealed a near exact match, also listed as an intermediate between the light and dark forms.

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From Tiger Swallowtail: Half Dark Morph | What's That Bug? on 19 Apr 2010 at 7:30 pm ¶
[...] morph is produced. This is one of those rarities. We received another example back in August 2008, and it had more light coloration than your example, but it is similar. Thanks for sending this [...]