Spicebush Swallowtail
(Adopted 1991)

Identify the adults by their spoon-shaped tails and by their bright green (male) or iridescent blue (female) hindwings. You must seek these primarily black swallowtails in deciduous woods or woody swamps, where the can be found flying low and fast through shaded areas. The Spicebush Swallowtail is found only in the eastern U.S. and extreme southern Ontario. The caterpillars live in folded leaf shelters and eat the leaves of sassafras or spicebush. Both sexes are thought to be edible mimics of the distasteful Pipe-vine Swallowtails.