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Swallowtail Butterflies

There are a lot of Swallowtail type butterflies in Florida. 10 varieties in fact. Swallowtails tend to be big and bold. I can stand across the house, look out our window at the garden and spot one no problem. Most have distinctive tails on their back wings. They love to chase each other in our garden.

If you want to host caterpillars, plant a Dutchman’s Pipe vine in your yard. Give it room to grow, ours constantly climbs its 6 foot trellis and then grabs for higher reaching neighboring plants. We get plenty of caterpillars and they get big. But no matter. The vine keeps on growing!

In fact, I’ll have to transplant it soon I think.

Another host plant family is citrus trees. We have a Persian Lime in our yard, and there’s enough to go around for the butterflies and us. They also like Dill, Parsley and Fennel depending on the type of Swallowtail you want to attract.

If Swallowtails let you get up close especially when they are feasting on pollen, you can see tiny reddish or orange Y shaped glands or horns coming out of their head. This is a protection from predators. They can release a really stinky odor to scare threats away. Luckily we haven’t been deemed a predator so far!

I have read that they like to shelter at night in tall grasses. We have planted several Red Fountain Grasses in case. We haven’t noticed Swallowtails resting in them, but maybe we are not looking hard enough!

Our Swallowtail visitors cannot resist our Jatropha plants, Porterweed, and Firebush. We tend to see Black Swallowtail, Giant Swallowtail, Eastern Tiger Swallowtail, and occasionally the Zebra Swallowtail. We hope you enjoy watching them grace our garden too.

Here’s a look at a couple of the most recent guests

Swallowtails feasting on Porterweed

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