northeast-flora-and-fauna

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, 2...

At the tail end of April I saw my first Black Swallowtail - the New Jersey state butterfly [1] - of the season. In my area they're neither rare nor common, maybe like friends you run into a few times a year. As I've mentioned before , the Black Swallowtail isn't the only swallowtail butterfly that's black, but it might be the blackest. Though the Black Swallowtail is usually a little smaller than black morph Eastern Tiger Swallowtails and Spicebush Swallowtails , the rich black color that sets off its yellow spots frequently has me suspicious that I'm seeing a Black Swallowtail even before I get a close look at it. (I could theoretically encounter various other swallowtail butterflies too, though it doesn't happen much.) April 30, 2022 at Duke Farms Photo 197665584, (c) jpviolette, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC) [1] It's also the state butterfly of Oklahoma. Oklahoma and New Jersey probably don't share a lot in common, but taste in butterflies is appa...

This was a black morph Eastern Tiger Swallowtail I met last summer. Though all male and most female Eastern Tiger Swallowtails have a yellow-with-black-stripes look, some of the females are mostly black. At a glance the black morph Eastern Tiger Swallowtails may look uniformly black, but if you get a good look at them you can see they have the same black stripes as the yellow ones. They actually have translucent black where their relatives have yellow, and the black stripes stand out pretty well in the right lighting. In my area we have 2 similar swallowtails, the Spicebush Swallowtail and the (slightly smaller) Black Swallowtail , and neither would show black stripes on a "light black" background. (They also have other pattern differences.) July 22, 2021 at Fairview Farm Photo 148401095, (c) jpviolette, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC) July 22, 2021 at Fairview Farm Photo 148401067, (c) jpviolette, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC)

Here's some Poison Hemlock I met a couple months back. Poison Hemlock is interesting in a lot of ways: It's not native to North America. It's an invasive plant from Europe and other Mediterranean regions. Despite not being a native species, a native butterfly (the Black Swallowtail ) can use it as a host plant as a caterpillar. It's related to plants we can eat, like carrots, parsley, and celery.  Though Poison Hemlock is plenty poisonous, our native water hemlocks are considered even more poisonous. It was the way the ancient Greeks got rid of Socrates and other condemned prisoners. It's not related to the hemlock trees , which are pine trees with foliage that smell slightly similar to Poison Hemlock leaves. The trees aren't poisonous (though this isn't an endorsement to eat their bark or needles). I don't see a lot of Poison Hemlock around, but there are areas where it's doing pretty well. I've heard that people have eaten it thinking that i...

Here's someone I met last month at Duke Farms, a Black Swallowtail . This is the state butterfly of New Jersey, attaining that status about 5 years ago . Note that not all NJ butterflies that are black are Black Swallowtails; Spicebush Swallowtails, Pipevine Swallowtails, and some female black morph Eastern Tiger Swallowtails are common butterflies that are black. Still, the rich black and the bright yellow spots generally give these guys a different look than most of the others. As caterpillars these guys mostly eat foods in the carrot/parsley family. Some of these plants you can eat (including celery, dill, and fennel), and some plants you can't (the invasive Poison Hemlock and at least some of the native Water Hemlocks). So if one of their caterpillars invites you over for dinner, make sure you ask what they're serving. May 4, 2021 at Duke Farms Photo 128324584, (c) jpviolette, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC)

Here's a Spicebush Swallowtail that was living near my apartment. This is one of our black swallowtail butterflies that are not the Black Swallowtail . Here's a good article on distinguishing our most common  swallowtails. If you don't remember all of that, don't worry. I suspect that most of these guys would be flattered if you merely recognize them as swallowtail butterflies . The Spicebush Swallowtail is actually easier to identify with the wings up. There you'll see a row of orange spots interrupted by a blue swoosh mark; no other similar-looking butterfly has that blue swoosh. From this angle, I'd look at the row of yellow spots at the edge of the wing. Black Swallowtails would have 2 rows. If this were a dark morph Eastern Tiger Swallowtail , even this row of spots would be virtually missing. And a Pipevine Swallowtail wouldn't have those spots at all. The host plant for their caterpillars is - wait for it - the Spicebush . Sometimes these names actu...

Here’s another Black Swallowtail . It’s not quite a “National Geographic shot”, but the top view with the wings spread is the most photogenic view for most butterflies.