Spicebush Swallowtail

Butterfly season is ramping up. A couple weeks ago I met this Spicebush Swallowtail, a butterfly I've talked about here and here. This was easily my earliest sighting of this butterfly in a season, with May 18 being over a month earlier than my June 22 sighting in a previous year. Looking at iNaturalist sightings by other people, this isn't a shocking sighting even though the Spicebush Swallowtail observations usually peak in July/August.

In the 1st picture we get a pretty good look at the tops of the wings, though I'd argue this isn't the best view for identifying a Spicebush Swallowtail. Looking at this I'd be inclined to think the spots would be more yellow on a Black Swallowtail, and that a black morph Eastern Tiger Swallowtail usually shows the typical stripy pattern you'd find on a regular yellow morph except that the pattern would be dark black on light black; the uniform black with the white spots would have me leaning towards a Spicebush.

May 18, 2022 at Duke Farms
Photo 203065893, (c) jpviolette, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC)

But the acid test is in the underwing view. The angle is a little challenging, but there is a row of orange spots nearest the head and nearly spanning the wing. And those spots are interrupted by a blue "swoosh" (which might look to you like a comet going through space, or maybe a snow-ice mountain); this mark is only seen on a Spicebush Swallowtail.

May 18, 2022 at Duke Farms
Photo 203065879, (c) jpviolette, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC)


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