Spicebush Swallowtail on ironweed
Papilio troilus
Spicebush Swallowtail · Brooklyn Botanic Garden · 19 August 2026
A Spicebush Swallowtail on ironweed in the August border, a butterfly of the eastern woods on one of the last big nectar plants of the summer.
The pale cream spot band and blue-green dusting across the hindwing separate this from the similar black-form female Eastern Tiger Swallowtail, which carries a row of orange rather than blue-green crescents. The caterpillars feed on spicebush and sassafras, disguising themselves early on as bird droppings and later, once too large for that trick, as a small snake, complete with false eyespots on a swollen thorax.
Birds, insects, plants and other wildlife, mostly from Brooklyn, with some from further afield.
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