Pipevine Swallowtail
Battus philenor · Butterflies
Pipevine Swallowtail
Brooklyn Botanic Garden, 26 July 2025
A Pipevine Swallowtail in the July border at the Botanic Garden, a butterfly of the woods and gardens of the eastern and southern states wherever pipevine grows, and the model for half the dark swallowtails around it.
The caterpillars feed exclusively on pipevine, taking up the plant's aristolochic acid and staying toxic through to the adult, which is why several unrelated species, including the dark female tiger swallowtail, have evolved to look like it. The iridescent blue only shows at certain angles; face-on in flat light the same butterfly can look almost entirely black.
Birds, insects, plants and other wildlife, mostly from Brooklyn, with some from further afield.
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