a humble garden blog... Above photo not enhanced in any way... All photos and text property of glimpsesofglory-karen... please ask permission to use

Tuesday, July 26, 2011

Butterfly Indentification

So far, it has been a good year for butterflies. These are two of the butterflies currently visiting my garden.
The photos were taken on separate days. While in the garden, I thought I was seeing the same butterfly until a few days later when I compared the photos. 
This first photo is the Dark female Eastern Swallowtail which mimics the Pipevine Swallowtail.
The Pipevine Swallowtail is nasty tasting because of a diet of the Pipevine, hence the reason for mimicking.
Female Tiger Swallowtails will only have the dark form if there are a lot of Pipevine Swallowtails living in the area. So, is this the real thing or the imposter?
The mostly back one in the first photo is very territorial and chases away the orange Monarchs that try to land on the Buddelias that are near by. 
The Yellow Eastern Tiger Swallowtail is a beauty! The males will have a few orange and blue spots neat their tail. So I think this might be a male. It is much larger than the dark female in the first photo.
This butterfly has many bird predators.
They both allow me to get very close to them. Very Fun!



3 comments:

  1. Stunning photos...I especially appreciate the Yellow Eastern Tiger Swallowtail...I have a couple here but they are super skittish and I am yet to get a photo as good as yours of any of them.

    Blessings Kelsie

    ReplyDelete
  2. I appreciate your photos very much, butterflies are so lovely. My room is full of butterfly wall stickers. I just love butterflies!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Beautiful photos! It's been a good year for swallowtails here too and it's wonderful to see them gracefully flitting about the garden.

    ReplyDelete

Popular Posts