Tag: tiger swallowtail

by Donna Lewis

I caught this beautiful male Tiger Swallowtail this afternoon while it was drinking nectar from a Zinnia.

I love this butterfly.  The male is yellow, while the females can sometimes be black.

You can see the stripes on the wings, which look like those on tigers. They are very large and easy to see and photograph. They look like they float in the air while trying to land. But other times they are very fast and hard to keep up with.

I have a lot of Purple Coneflowers and Zinnias in the garden, which are favorites of this species.

Their eggs are hard to find. The egg is green and round which blends in with the leaves of sweet bay magnolia and tulip poplar trees. The eggs are generally high up at the top of the tree.

There are also Fritillaries, Sulphurs,  Pipevine Swallowtails, and Eastern Black Swallowtails in the pasture. I was too slow to get clear photos of them.

Lots to look at as always.

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• Butterfly identification from iNaturalist and not guaranteed accurate. Suggestions welcome.

by Donna Lewis

This little beauty was traveling fast across our back pasture. It took me about 45 minutes to catch up with him to get a photo.  I am not fast anymore.

This is a male Tiger Swallowtail. All the males in this species are yellow.  The females can be yellow or black.  his second color form is called dimorphic  coloration.

These guys are fast. If you sneak up behind them while they are on a flower you can get a photo.

Right now, there is nothing flowering in my garden. He was on a Hen-bit in the pasture. Not much nectar anywhere right now. One of the flowers they like that is easy to grow are Coneflowers. I think the ones in my garden are still underground. I hope this guy can survive until more flowers are up.

The Swallowtail is known to gather at mud puddles sipping the salts and minerals they need for reproduction. When the caterpillar first appears, it looks like bird droppings. Icky, but helpful in evading predators. We will probably not see their chrysalis because they lay their eggs in treetops. I am just not tall enough… 

This butterfly is so beautiful as it flows across the pasture.

Right now, the butterflies of all kinds are waking up, so keep an eye out for them.

Just when the caterpillar thought its world was over…it became a butterfly.