When I was out taking this picture I thought this was the female dark form of the Tiger swallowtail. Now looking at this picture, I think this is a spicebush swallowtail. It's nectaring on a Tithonia (Mexican sunflower). This particular butterfly seemed to only nectar on orange flowers. Can anyone confirm this is a spicebush? This would be a new one in my yard :) I didn't get much of the inside of the wings--it was a little camera shy!
Here is more of a side shot of the swallowtail...
For comparison to the Black Swallowtail, here's a picture of the outside of it's wings. You can tell the spots are different than the one on the Tithonia. (I apologize for the slight "fuzziness" of this one. I took it while it was still in my b'fly hatchery.)
It could be a Spicebush ST but also could be a Black ST, difficult to say for me without a clear upper wing shot.
Did it have eye spots on the wing tops?
I honestly don't know. These two pictures are all I got and I didn't get a good look at the inside of the wings. The first shot I posted is the most I got of the inside of the wings.
It is definitely a spicebush swallowtail (P. troilus). The main giveaway is the much reduced row of yellow bands on the undersurface of the forewing on P. troilus. Also, P. polyxenes has a dark spot in the center of the orange spot located just about the tail in the undersurface of the hindwing. This is obvious when comparing the above pics.
Congrats on getting a new species for the garden. That is always fun. Just a couple of weeks ago I got a new one: the great purple hairstreak (Atlides halesus)!
By the way, P. troilus is distributed throughout the eastern U.S. from Canada to Florida west to Texas and Oklahoma. I wish we had them out here in CA!
Hi, Bugguy! Oh, cool!!! So glad you stopped by and could confirm my ID. I was pretty sure that was a spicebush ST based upon the wing markings in the picture. I mainly went by the numbers and locations of the various spots, especially the orange ones. I was reading that they are a mimic of the toxic pipevine swallowtail. I just started growing pipevine this summer (Aristolochia sp.--the native nursery I bought it from didn't even know which species it was!). It's on the fence right behind that Tithonia (you can see a few of the sort of heart-shaped leaves of the pipevine in the background of the picture), so pipevine ST was my second guess. Gonna have to go share the joy with the butterfly guy at the Farmer's Market on Sat. Oh boy, oh boy!
