Pipevine Swallowtail butterfly

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Pipevine Swallowtail butterfly

July 20, 2013 by Mike Powell

How many kinds of black swallowtail butterflies can there possibly be? Until yesterday, the only black swallowtail that I had ever encountered was the black variant of the female Eastern Tiger Swallowtail. (Check out my posting from last year to see the two variants of the female Eastern Tiger Swallowtail, a characteristic known as dimorphism.)

Yesterday, while walking along the boardwalk at my local marshland park, I came across a black butterfly feeding on a Buttonbush. Clearly it was a swallowtail and it was equally obvious that it was not an Eastern Tiger Swallowtail. I remembered that there was another black swallowtail called a Spicebush, so I figured that was what it had to be. When I checked out the photos of the Spicebush Swallowtail on-line, though, none of them seemed to match my butterfly exactly.

It was only today, when I was looking through photos with my photograph mentor, Cindy Dyer, that I realized that there was yet another black swallowtail and have concluded that the unknown butterfly is almost certainly a Pipevine Swallowtail butterfly (Battus philenor). It looks a lot like the Spicesbush, but the pattern of the orange dots are different, as pointed out in this posting by Don Lambert on the Earth Science Picture of the Day blog.

Posted in Butterflies, Flowers, Gardening, Insects, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography | Tagged Alexandria VA, Battus philenor, butterfly, Buttonbush, Canon 55-250mm zoom lens, Canon Rebel XT, Huntley Meadows Park, Pipevine Swallowtail, Pipevine Swallowtail butterfly | 11 Comments

11 Responses

on July 20, 2013 at 3:50 pm | Reply Victor Rakmil

These are wonderful! The flower and the Butterfly!
- on July 21, 2013 at 1:16 pm | Reply Mike Powell
  
  Thanks, Victor. It’s always exciting to see new species (and to get decent shots of them).
on July 20, 2013 at 3:56 pm | Reply Judy @ GrandparentsPlus2

Spectacular shots of such a beautiful butterfly. Thank you for sharing.
on July 20, 2013 at 4:02 pm | Reply Mjollnir

Great shots as always Mike. The colours on the top photo are amazing 😀
on July 20, 2013 at 5:25 pm | Reply lylekrahn

Beautiful. I like the black one better.
on July 20, 2013 at 6:20 pm | Reply Charlie@Seattle Trekker

Spectacular photo and the reference information was really wonderful, I did go to both blogs you linked to for the additional information.
on July 20, 2013 at 8:00 pm | Reply The Backdoor Artist

We have Pipevine Swallowtails in our area. It was always a favorite for the kids to collect Dutchman’s Pipevine leaves with eggs, watch the caterpillars grow, enter cocoons and emerge. It was a special treat if they could catch the butterfly emerging in photos.
Nice shots.
- on July 20, 2013 at 8:49 pm | Reply Mike Powell
  
  Thanks. The metamorphosis of caterpillars to butterflies is such an amazing process and it’s really cool for kids to be able to follow it. For me, Pipevine Swallowtails are a new species and I find them to be amazingly beautiful.
on July 21, 2013 at 5:06 am | Reply muddepaws

Great shots and I enjoy the information you give as much as I enjoy your wonderful photographs. I love to learn about species that are new to me.
on July 21, 2013 at 10:07 am | Reply New Hampshire Garden Solutions

I’ve never heard of or seen this one but you’ve got some beautiful shots of it.
on August 4, 2013 at 12:27 pm | Reply Swallowtail butterfly metamorphosis, video | Dear Kitty. Some blog

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