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Photo#823267
Swallowtail - Papilio glaucus - female

Swallowtail - Papilio glaucus - Female
Toronto- Toronto Botanical Garden, Southern Ontario, Ontario, Canada
August 12, 2013
don't know if its a Canadian or an Eastern... or if we can even tell by the angles.

Images of this individual: tag all
Swallowtail - Papilio glaucus - female Swallowtail - Papilio glaucus - female

Moved

Moved
Moved from ID Request.

It is a female Eastern Tiger Swallowtail
Papilio glaucus.

They usually "look" different, but that is hard to explain well. Larger broader wings with narrower black stripes (usually) on Easterns, and the body looks proportionately smaller as compared to the wings. The underside of the front hind wing (on the Eastern) has the yellow band just in from the margin broken into distinct, usually rounded spots. In the Canadian (and all the other Tiger Swallowtails) this band is continuous, at most only slightly interrupted in a few places (not broken into separate rounded spots). On the upper side the same band is broken into spots on all of them though. Also, usually, the Eastern Tiger Swallowtail is considerably larger than the Canadian. They both fly in the spring / early summer (in most places the Canadian flies roughly in June and a bit to one side or the other; August would be very late for a Canadian Tiger to be flying), while the Eastern usually has at least one flight later in the year too.

Having said all that, I'm not always certain which one I'm looking at, especially in a photo taken in early spring (when Easterns are often small, and often look a tad more like Canadians). When the photo is of the upper side only, it can sometimes be very difficult. I have no doubts about this one though.

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