rss Butterfly
Location: cape cod
August 17, 2011 10:38 pm
Hi bugman. I found this butterfly sitting on a bush out in my yard.
Signature: max
Eastern Tiger Swallowtail
Hi Max,
This beautiful butterfly is an Eastern Tiger Swallowtail and he is a male as indicated by the lack of blue on the lower wings. Here is a photo of a female Tiger Swallowtail from our archives.
Eastern Tiger Swallowtail Black Form
Location: Mound Minnesota
August 13, 2011 9:36 am
Hello from Minnesota. I have two photos to share with you of a Eastern Tiger Swallowtail, black form that I hope you’ll enjoy. This is a first for me and I was so excited to see it that I chased it through very thick & prickly thistle to get some photos. These photos were taken on 8.12.2011 in the late afternoon.
I also don’t know what that little orange bug is that’s sharing the thistle with the butterfly.
Signature: Laura
Black Tiger Swallowtail
Hi Laura,
Your photos are stunning. They were worth the pinchy thistles. A significant percentage of female Tiger Swallowtails are black, and this color variation is not found among the males. Some are so dark it is difficult to make out the stripes. Some females show transitional markings that are a combination of dark and light, and we were very fortunate to receive this photo last year of a half black, half striped Tiger Swallowtail that was also a gynandromorph, an insect hermaphrodite. The left side of the individual is a dark female and the right side is a normal male. The orange beetle is a Goldenrod Soldier Beetle or Pennsylvania Leatherwing.
Black Tiger Swallowtail
Hello, Daniel,
Thanks for the reply. And thanks for the information/links. That one photo, the half & half/gynandromorph is amazing. Wow, what a find.
Anyway, thanks again. I was pretty excited about my find and I’m hoping to see her again!
Laura
geometric pattern swallowtail
Location: Eau Claire, Wi.
August 8, 2011 8:13 pm
I know now that this is a black swallowtail. But LOOK at the pattern on this baby! My eye was drawn to it as soon as I stepped outside. Never have I seen one of these before. It was very big too. Spotted and photographed in Eau Claire Wi. on Aug 8, 2011 at 1:00 pm.
Signature: gail from Wisconsin
Giant Swallowtail
Hi Gail,
This is a Giant Swallowtail, not a Black Swallowtail. It is reported to be the largest North American butterfly.
Two Swallowtails
Location: Dongducheon, Gyeonggi-do, South Korea
July 27, 2011 5:13 am
Hey there,
I live in South Korea and this summer I’ve seen two really cool looking butterflies around. I don’t think I’ve seen either of them on your website yet. Could you help me identify them?
Signature: Sarah
Asian Swallowtail
Hi Sarah,
We located a TrekNature South Korean Butterfly website and found one of your swallowtails identified as a Citrus Swallowtail, Papilio xuthus, however, there is another species that goes by the common name Citrus Swallowtail (see our archives). According to the Butterflies of Hawaii website, it is also known as the Chinese Yellow Swallowtail or the Asian Swallowtail. BioLib only provides the name Asian Swallowtail. We believe your other butterfly might be Papilio elwesi because of its broad tails. There is some variability between individuals, but these photos from The Butterfly Corner website look very similar to your individual. Though many of the images are of mounted specimens, we discovered the Lepidoptera Pro website which has images and information on many swallowtails from around the world.
Possibly Papilio elwesi
Hello Bugman,
Thank you so much for your quick replies! I did a search for papilio elwesi and it’s too bad it seems every image is of a mounted one. I’ve been seeing them frequently around. They have an unusual gait when flying, it’s almost like they’re too heavy to keep themselves up. The pictures I took of it were a challenge because it was almost too heavy for the flowers it was trying to get nectar from so it kept moving around trying to get a good spot to land. I’m hoping once our torrential rains let up, I’ll have another opportunity to take a clearer picture of one of them. Looking forward to what you think the big fat green caterpillar is 
Sarah
Location: Applewood, Golden, Colorado
July 25, 2011
Daniel,
Thank you so much for the speedy reply. It really made Hannah’s day!
Here is the drawing that she made to save for her bug journal.
We catch, study and release a lot of Swallow Tail Butterflies in our back yard too (see second pic). Is there a similar trick to determining the sex of that species?
Thanks again,
Charley
Two Tailed Swallowtail
Hi again Charley and Hannah,
This is a male Two Tailed Swallowtail, Papilio multicaudata. According to bugGuide: “Upper surface of male forewing with narrow black stripes. Each hindwing has 2 tails.(1) If abdomen is visible, male claspers are obvious as a yellow segment at the tip, beyond the black stripe. Females often have broader black stripes, and more blue on the upperside.“ The narrower stripes and limited blue indicate that this is a male.
black butterfly
Location: Eau Claire, Wis.
July 24, 2011 5:03 pm
I had quite a few minutes in my garden today, July 24, 2011, with this beauty. It was very large as far as butterflies go in West Central Wis. perhaps four or five inches. While it was very interested in my garden it also seemed interested in me and for a while, as I hoped and waited, it seemed it would land on me, circling around. Flitting from plant to plant, it never stayed long on one. Although it has a ragged wing it seemed to be doing fine. Lovely blue spots one the top of wings with one orange spot each in the center on the inner edge. The undersides, however, have yellow spots. When it landed it liked to have its wings outstretched. I hope it visits again.
Signature: gail from Wisconsin
Black Swallowtail
Hi Gail,
There are several large dark swallowtail butterflies in your area, and this individual is a female Black Swallowtail, Papilio polyxenes. The male does not hae the blue markings on the hind wings which you can see in this photo from our archives.
Black Butterfly
Location: Woods, on Pink Ball
July 4, 2011 8:58 am
I was walking around my backyard when I turned around and noticed in our woods where our old pink ball stands, there was a huge black butterfly with little white spots on the ends of the wings. Could you please tell me what this beautiful bug is?
Signature: Maddison .L.
Spicebush Swallowtail
Hi Maddison,
Your excellent photo of a male Spicebush Swallowtail allows us to eliminate other dark swallowtails that also range in your area of the woods on a pink ball. Typically, the location field on our form is used to supply a state, country, county or city or some other identifiable location as opposed to a vague site like woods with a pink ball.
I apologize, I wasn’t too sure what it meant, here is the real location; United States, Massachusetts, Centerville
swallowtail and buckeye, paso robles
Pale Swallowtail
Ed. Note: Our dear friend Clare Marter Kenyon just sent these photos because she knew Daniel was preparing a powerpoint presentation for the Theodore Payne Foundation and he didn’t have many photos of the Western Tiger Swallowtail despite the countless individuals that flit around his Mt Washington garden in the summer.
Pale Swallowtail
Correction: January 15, 2012
Thanks to input from lepidopterist Julian Donahue and Clare Marter Kenyon who took the photo, we have corrected this identification as a Pale Swallowtail, Papilio eurymedon, which may also be viewed on BugGuide.
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