Eastern tiger swallowtail
The eastern tiger swallowtail is a big yellow butterfly with black stripes, just like a tiger. Its back wings end in little tails. Some mothers are yellow and some are almost all black, so they can look like two different butterflies.
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Fun facts
The first drawing ever made of a North American butterfly showed this butterfly. It was painted in 1587.
Its older caterpillar is green and has two big fake eyes on its front, which helps scare away birds.
Just before it turns into a chrysalis, the green caterpillar changes colour to brown.
In places with cold winters, it spends the winter tucked inside its chrysalis.
Several American states have picked it as their state butterfly.
Most asked questions about Eastern tiger swallowtail
?How big is the eastern tiger swallowtail?
Its wings measure about 8 to 14 centimetres from tip to tip. The females are the bigger ones.
?What does the eastern tiger swallowtail eat?
The butterflies drink nectar from flowers, and the caterpillars eat tree leaves.
?Why are some tiger swallowtails black?
Only the females can be black. Some females are yellow like the males and others are dark, almost black.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Papilio glaucus
- Named by
- Linnaeus, 1758
- Group
- Butterflies
- Family
- Papilionidae
- Classification
- Insecta > Lepidoptera > Papilionidae
- Lives on
- North America
Where the facts come from
- Papilio glaucus (Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0): what it looks like, where it lives, what it eats, sizes and fun facts, retold in simple words.
- Picture by HaarFager at English Wikipedia. CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons. The round sticker of this bug is cut from the same picture.
If we got something wrong, sorry, we are bug fans, not a science journal. Tell us at [email protected] and we will fix it.
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