A worldwide community photographing and learning about wildlife
Project Noah Nature School
Cephalanthus occidentalis
An eastern tiger swallowtail enjoying a meal from a buttonbush flower.
Lake.
Spotted on Sep 9, 2013
Submitted on Sep 9, 2013
1 Comment
Beautiful series. I think that your butterfly is a dark form female Easter Tiger Swallowtail ( Papilio glaucus). The markings aren't correct for a Spicebush Swallowtail and if you look you can just see the dark stripes on the wings, especially in the third photo.
Here is an image of a Spicebush: http://bugguide.net/node/view/859428/bgi...
Compare to images here of the dark form female Eastern Tiger Swallowtails:
http://bugguide.net/node/view/746407/bgi...
http://bugguide.net/node/view/593658/bgi...
http://bugguide.net/node/view/432418/bgi...