Eastern Tiger Swallowtail Butterfly - Papilio glaucus

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.

Eastern Tiger Swallowtail

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.

Eastern Tiger Swallowtail

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.

	Female Tiger Swallowtail (Yellow Variety)
Black Female Form Tiger Swallowtail

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