Black Swallowtail

Family: Papilionidae •
Genus: Papilio •
Species: polyxenes •
Range: North America •
Synonyms: n/a •
Common Names: Black Swallowtail •

     Look at this handsome devil that showed up in my yard last week. One of the many butterflies I see in my yard from time to time. Click HERE for some earlier posts on butterflies. Here is a little more information about the Black Swallowtail butterfly courtesy of the University of Florida.

     The caterpillar of the black swallowtail is 1-1/2" to 2" long, often called the "parsley worm" because it forages on parsley and other umbelliferous plants (carrot, wild carrot, dill, celery, fennel, etc.). Mature larvae are green with black and yellow spots or markings on each segment.
     The black swallowtail butterfly, also known as the American or parsnip swallowtail, has a wingspan of 2-1/2" to 3-1/2".  The upper surface of the forewings has two parallel rows of yellow submarginal spots that contrast with the basal black color of the wings. These spots also appear on the hindwings, but with a curving row of blue spots between the rows of yellow (Castner, 2007).

Sources: Castner, J.L. (2007, July 1). Florida butterflies sheet 2. Retrieved from http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/in032





 Black Swallowtail by Eric Bronson is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

Dun Skipper Euphyes vestris

I was out taking pictures yesterday when, I thought I was being attacked by a horsefly. It turned out it was this skipper. So I figured I'd get some shots of it and then I saw its huge proboscis. Wow, it is about two inches long! I tried to get to get a shot of it rolled up but none of them turned out good. To really see it click the pictures to view them in a larger format.



Dun Skipper by Eric Bronson is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
Based on a work at www.flickr.com

Coral Vine Antigonon leptopus w/Gulf Fritillary Agraulis vanillae

Coral Vine by Eric Bronson is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
Based on a work at www.flickr.com

South Florida Butterflies

These are they beauties that frequent my garden. There are some that are hard to capture without a better camera set-up hence there is only one picture. Such as the Giant Swallowtail (Papilio cresphontes) Cloudless Sulphur (Phoebis sennae) and some are just to common ie: Monarch (Danaus plexippus) to show here. You can see all the pictures in a larger format by clicking on them. I recommend opening them in a new tab.

enjoy
Eric

Family/Subfamily: Nymphalidae/Heliconiiae •
Genus: Heliconius •
Species: charitonius •
Common Names: Zebra Longwing •

Family/Subfamily: Lycaenidae/Polyommatinae •
Genus: Leptotes •
Species: cassius •
Common Names: Cassius Blue •

Family/Subfamily: Nymphalidae/Nymphalinae •
Genus: Anartia •
Species: jatrophae •
Common Names: White Peacock •

Family/Subfamily: Nymphalidae/Limenitidinae •

Genus: Marpesia •
Species: petreus •
Common Names: Ruddy Daggerwing •

Family/Subfamily: Pieridae/Coliadinae •

Genus: Phoebis •
Species: sennae •
Common Names: Cloudless Sulphur •

Family/Subfamily: Nymphalidae/Heliconiiae •

Genus: Agraulis •
Species: vanillae •
Common Names: Gulf Fritillary •

Family/Subfamily: Papilionidae/Papilioninae •

Genus: Papilio •
Species: cresphontes •
Common Names: Giant Swallowtail •

I verified all these id's with 'Butterflies of Florida' by Jaret C. Daniels


South Florida Butterflies by Eric Bronson is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
Based on a work at www.flickr.com

Cassius Blue Leptotes cassius

I found this tiny little guy on my Carambola tree. It's only about .75 to 1.0 inches overall. It's white below (ventral) with brownish spots and you can see the two small orange rimmed blue eye-spots. What I couldn't get a picture of is the top (dorsal) view which is purplish-blue! One of their larval food is Plumbago which is over used and found in almost every garden here. They also like Wild Tamarind, Leadwort, Blackbead and Milk Peas et al.

The Cassius Blue is abundant throughout south Florida but occasionally disperses northward beyond the state's border. Many of these isolated records, however, may be the result of immature stages of the butterfly "piggybacking" on shipments of the popular landscape plant, Plumbago, to various commercial nurseries.
excerpt from 'Butterflies of Florida Field Guide' by Jaret C. Daniels


Cassius Blue by Eric Bronson is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
Based on a work at www.flickr.com