Walking to school every morning has its benefits including today’s surprise sighting: a gorgeous newly emerged Black Swallowtail butterfly.
What Kind of Black Beauty?
When we first saw the dark wings and swallowtail-hind-wing extensions, we weren’t sure if we were seeing a Black Swallowtail or a black female colour variant of the more common Yellow Swallowtails. In our neighbourhood, Yellow Swallowtails are a fairly common sight in June.
We’ve seen the dark-variant females in our back yard before.
If you look below the antenna you can just make out two criss-crossing black lines: one is a leg then other is the butterfly’s proboscis which it’s using to sip moisture.
This butterfly had stopped to sip up moisture from between some interlocking driveway bricks. We stepped carefully closer making sure our shadows didn’t cross the drinker’s eyes.
The large number of yellow markings confirmed this was a Black Swallowtail.
Where Might Our Black Swallowtail Lay Eggs?
Well, upon reading at home, I discovered our particular Black Swallowtail was a male so it won’t be laying any eggs personally! The males have more yellow spots and fewer blue markings than the females. However, he might find a partner in which case eggs would be possible.
As children, my brothers and I had often seen the large green, yellow and black caterpillars of this kind of swallowtail growing fat on the carrot leaves growing in our garden. And we’d found one in that same back yard on my mother’s parsley a few years ago.
I haven’t seen any here at our home, though, so this year we’ll be keeping a closer eye on our parsley and our carrot leaves!
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Join In
Do you have Swallowtails in your neighbourhood? Have you seen them “puddling” on your lawn or sidewalk? Please share your sightings with a comment.
Today I found one yellow swallowtail on my parsley plants. Only noticed one.
Maybe more will be in your neighbourhood soon. Thanks for sharing your sighting!
My teenage son called me and showed me this awesome green caterpillars , although it was on my favorite herb pot garden i did not disturb it and it kept munching on.I was thinking of moving it to bigger plant if is continued to munch vigorously,but it was too beautiful and I liked it there. Today my son called me again and ask me to see what pretty chipmunk was eating. I saw as he was enjoying something green and seemed to enjoy .it. I was little didisappointed but then that is a circle of life
Yes, that’s why they have hundreds of caterpillars but still…. Thanks for sharing your sighting!
we found one in South River Ontario it was on dill.
Aha, you may have caterpillars soon! Thanks for sharing!
Hi … found a couple of these beautiful caterpillars on my carrots tonight. I live near Beeton, Ontario.
Sounds like you’ll be enjoying some butterflies in your yard in a few weeks! Thanks!
Found a fat one in my herb garden sitting on my parsley in Southwest Florida!
Great find!
We have had these in the garden for the past 3 yrs. They love parsley and dill and will devour all of the leaves. I now plant extra for them.
I have to plant extra parsley too! Thanks for sharing your sighting, and for growing enough herbs to share!
Found one in the garden today, working his/her way up a spring of dill. Any chance I can post a photo?