The butterfly I have photographed here is a spicebush swallowtail feeding on a buttonbush bloom. It is native to the eastern United States and belongs to a large family of butterflies known as black ...

The female spicebush swallowtail butterfly was fluttering down, landing for a moment or two on a leaf on my sassafras tree and moving on to do the same thing on other leaves over and over again. It ...

When the spicebush swallowtail is in its later stages of being a caterpillar, it looks a lot like a small green snake. It has large false eyes on either side of its long head that make it look very ...

Since the beginning of time, nature enthusiasts and poets have rhapsodized about butterflies but have seldom waxed poetic about caterpillars. True, a bard might consider a caterpillar to be nothing ...

Last week I had a picture of a dark form of the eastern tiger swallowtail with my column. The obvious question about any species with more than one color form is: What is the advantage? The advantage ...

What has what looks like eyes but doesn’t use them to see with? No, it’s not a potato, but I did discover the answer to this riddle when I came across a peculiar looking caterpillar in my flower bed: ...

Q. How can I support the swallowtail butterfly population? It's great to see the monarchs but I would like to have another variety in my yard. A. Swallowtail butterflies are beautiful insects easily ...

About 170 butterfly species occur in North Carolina as permanent residents, regular visitors, or rare strays. Some of these are restricted to either the coastal or mountain regions. I'd estimate that ...

If you discover caterpillars chowing down in your herb garden, resist the urge to squish them. They'll be gone soon enough. If they're eating parsley, dill or fennel, they'll likely turn into Eastern ...