Tiger Swallowtail Gallery
We have dozens of these at any given time, and I could happily photograph them all day long.
Not only are they the most common species here, the Tiger Swallowtails are a pretty interesting creature in other ways, as well. You can sometimes distinguish between the sexes as the males will have less blue on their inner hind wings; the females will have more blue. Also, the females have both a light and a dark morph; a female can be black instead of yellow (although you'll still be able to see the darker stripes if you look closely). The dark morph mimics the pipevine swallowtail, which is poisonous to predators. It can also be hard to distinguish the dark morph from the Black Swallowtail, the Spicebush Swallowtail, and the Red-Spotted Purple. HERE is another good blog post I found online with examples of all the similar; I have plans to update this page with better examples & info soon!!
Not only are they the most common species here, the Tiger Swallowtails are a pretty interesting creature in other ways, as well. You can sometimes distinguish between the sexes as the males will have less blue on their inner hind wings; the females will have more blue. Also, the females have both a light and a dark morph; a female can be black instead of yellow (although you'll still be able to see the darker stripes if you look closely). The dark morph mimics the pipevine swallowtail, which is poisonous to predators. It can also be hard to distinguish the dark morph from the Black Swallowtail, the Spicebush Swallowtail, and the Red-Spotted Purple. HERE is another good blog post I found online with examples of all the similar; I have plans to update this page with better examples & info soon!!