Mary Eva Price, age 13, of East Peoria, Ill for her question:
What are swallowtail butterflies?
Last week, the moths fluttered into Andy’s column. This week, a whole group of beautiful butterflies are here to be admired. Those of us who collect butterflies certainly treasure the handsome swallowtails and will want to know all about them. For they are the glamor boys and girls of the glamorous world of butterflies,
All these insects begin life as eggs and go through a caterpillar, or larva stage, Next comes their sleeping beauty, or pupa stage. Some of the moths pupate in cocoons of softest silk. Not so the butterflies. All of them pupate in crisp shelled chrysalises. You may find the pupae near the plants on which they fed as caterpillars. If you put them in a warm, dry box they will hatch into adult butterflies,
The swallowtails are the largest of our butterflies and you can recognize them by the pointed swallowtail a.t the end of each back wing. The biggest of the group is the giant swallowtail, whose velvety wings may spread four and a half inches wide. As a caterpillar, he is a brown and yellow pinto, very fond of the leaves of wild cherry and other plans. As an adult, he is also brown and yellow, but what a difference. The wide brown wings are ribboned and spotted with yellow buttons, There are also two little yellow teardrops, one inside each of his brown swallowtail tips.
The spicebush swallowtail spent his caterpillar days on a spicebush, sassafras or some other related plant. In those days he was a green fellow with brown caterpillar feet and a pair of blue eye dots on his shoulders. As an adult, he is dusky black, gracefully dotted with yellow and blue.
His front wings are bordered with a row of yellow buttons. His back wings are bordered with blue buttons and smudged with blue blots.
Chances are, the black swallowtail spent his caterpillar days feeding in a bed of wild parsley. He was a gaily dressed larva ringed with green and black garters. The black rings were dotted with rows of yellow buttons. As an adult, his basic color is velvety black. The wings are bordered with yellow buttons and his back wings have smudges of blue.
The gaudy wings of the tiger swallowtail are almost as wide as those of the giant of the family. His lovely wings are sulphur yellow bordered in black and decorated around the edges with small buttons of blue, red and yellow. Though not the biggest, this fellow is certainly the most handsome of our swallowtails.
Butterfly collectors may be fooled by a pale, pale green swallowtail insect, This creature, with very long tails, is not really a butterfly. He is the rare and lovely luna moth and, of course, belongs in the moth collection.