Yes, females can be confusing. Looking through my photos of the past few months I discovered this one from September.
It appears to be two different species of swallowtail but looks can be deceiving. Female eastern tiger swallowtails can either be blue or yellow. Why is this? Are they mimicking the unpalatable spicebush swallowtails. The above photo is either a male and a female or two females. The key to identification of the yellow females is the presence of blue on the hind wings.
Male eastern tiger swallowtail
Female eastern tiger swallowtail(yellow form: note blue on hind wings)
Female eastern tiger swallowtail (blue form)•
No comments:
Post a Comment