Wednesday, July 27, 2011

Yellow Swallowtail

The eastern tiger swallowtail is one of the eastern United States' most familiar butterflies, and large and beautiful it is indeed. Tuesday afternoon, one (a female, I believe, based on the blue areas that can be seen on the hindwing) flitted from coneflower to coneflower outside our living room window. I don't know much about butterflies, but in reading enough to write about them here, I learned that although the male tiger swallowtail is always yellow, the females can be either yellow (with the distinguishing blue decoration) or virtually black.



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