Eastern tiger swallowtail
| Eastern tiger swallowtail |
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| Scientific Classification |
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| Binomial Name |
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Papilio glaucus |
| Eastern Tiger swallowtail |
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The Eastern tiger Swallowtail is a species of swallowtail butterfly that is naive to North America, and known by the scientific name Papilio glaucus. It is easy to spot them and identify them because of there size and colors. It is one of the most widely known butterfly in eastern United States. It is considered as a single species in a large area of northern Canada and the eastern United States.[1] The female forms of the Eastern Tiger Swallowtail imitates the Pipevine swallowtail, and are most often seen in several areas where the pipevine is active. These butterflies are called swallowtails because their tails are long and are located on their hindwings which look a bit like the long, pointed tails of swallows.[2]
Anatomy
Male is yellow or orange yellow and also with black tiger strips across the wing. Females have two types male like a yellow or black wings with dark strips.and those size are 79-140mm. The average wingspan of the Eastern tiger swallowtail is 7.9 to 14 centimeters. [3] The adult male has "tiger stripes, and is yellow. It also has a few orange and blue spots on its tail. A female Eastern tiger swallowtail is both light and dark. Some light females are not too different from male Eastern tiger swallowtails. But, it has more blue on its wings. The dark one also has a blue spot on its tails and wings, but the yellow color is replaced with dark blue and dark grey. Many of dark form females are found in East. There are two similar species of Eastern tiger swallowtail. One is Canadian Tiger Swallowtail, Papilio canadensis, and Appalachian Tiger Swallowtail, Papilio appalachiensis. [4] they are hard to distinguish from another. The Tiger Swallowtail is smaller than others. There are stripes on the underside near by the abdomen and its color is black. Also, Tiger Swallowtails stripes on its wings are thicker than the others which can differentiate the Eastern Tiger Swallowtail and the Canadian Tiger Swallowtail. Appalachian Tiger Swallowtail is bigger than the brood of Eastern Tiger Swallowtail.
Reproduction
The male Eastern tiger swallowtail seeks for a female and when it spots one, it flies around the female and when mating, male releases pheromones which entice female into mating. A female Eastern tiger swallowtail lays her eggs on host plants after mating. Host plants are the plants that caterpillars will feed on. The plants are mostly Red Maple, Sassafras and Black Cherry. The height of an egg is about 0.8 millimeters (0.03 in) and its width is about 1.2 millimeters (00.5) in and it takes around 4 or 10 days for an egg to hatch. When caterpillars hatch first, their colors will literally look like a bird poop. The color of it helps the babies as camouflage.[5]
Eggs are laid on the leaves. it stays northern part of the range and undersides of the leaves and the stip scars. After when they are born. they become larvae spin a mat of silk on a leaf that edges to curl upwards, but they can not produce a complete leaf roll. The larva rests on the mat of silk. meaning that they prepare to be beautiful butterfly. They put some of silk to the plant and they coil to the plants, meaning that they became parts of pupa. pupa is spending all the overwintering stage then they are born in spring.[6]
As they start growing, they turn into green and starts to have dots on their heads that look like eyes. they are not actually eyes, in fact those dots are to scare the predators away or to make them attack the less important part of the body, since the butterfly can still survive even after losing part of its wing. When caterpillars are fully grown, they will become pupae which is a resting stage. And the name of a butterfly pupa is chrysalis. The size of a Chrysalis is 3.2 centimeters long (1.3 in). Its color varies Some are whiter than others and some are more black looking than the others. The whiter ones have a black stripe along its length of the body. There are two horns on its head and thorax. A Chrysalis can be found in various places. It goes into hibernation during cold weather. It only takes few weeks for an adult Easter tiger swallowtail to come out from chrysalis. But sometimes the period of it depends on the weather in the habitat they are dwelling at. [7]If the weather is too cold to come out it will wait until spring.
Ecology
In the United States, Eastern tiger swallowtail mostly inhabit from Vermont to west Florida to eastern Texas. It can also be found in various habitats, such as woodland, open land, creek, urban place, and city yards. They are also found even in asia, africa, and eurpean.[8]
Video
References
- eastern tiger swallowtail Mark Moran, Fairfax County Public Schools, access Dec 7.2010.
- Tigersw author, Enchanted Learning, 1999-2010.
- yellow tiger butterfly Brian Kenney, eNature, 2007.
- Eastern tiger swallowtail Wikipedia, wikipedia, access Dec 7 2010.
- Tiger Swallowtail; Eastern Tiger Swallowtail, Papilio glaucus Linnaeus (Insecta: Lepidoptera: Papilionidae) Donald W. Hall and Jerry F. Butler, Edis, copyright 2009.
