Animalia > Arthropoda > Insecta > Lepidoptera > Papilionidae > Papilio > Papilio polyxenes

Papilio polyxenes (Eastern black swallowtail)

Synonyms: Papilio americus; Papilio mediocauda; Papilio rudkini

Wikipedia Abstract

Papilio polyxenes, the (eastern) black swallowtail, American swallowtail or parsnip swallowtail, is a butterfly found throughout much of North America. It is the state butterfly of Oklahoma and New Jersey. An extremely similar-appearing species, Papilio joanae, occurs in the Ozark Mountains region, but it appears to be closely related to Papilio machaon, rather than P. polyxenes. The species is named after the figure in Greek mythology, Polyxena (pron.: /pəˈlɪksɨnə/; Greek: Πολυξένη), who was the youngest daughter of King Priam of Troy. Its caterpillar is called the parsley worm because the caterpillar feeds on parsley.
View Wikipedia Record: Papilio polyxenes

Infraspecies

Attributes

Diet [1]  Herbivore
Wing Span [2]  2.874 inches (.073 m)

Protected Areas

Name IUCN Category Area acres Location Species Website Climate Land Use
Calvin College Ecosystem Preserve 90 Michigan, United States
Carlsbad Caverns National Park II 15448 New Mexico, United States
Western Michigan University’s Asylum Lake Preserve 274 Michigan, United States

Ecosystems

Emblem of

Oklahoma

Prey / Diet

Prey / Diet Overlap

Predators

Providers

Mimic of 
Battus philenor (pipevine swallowtail)[4]

Consumers

Pollinator of 
Asclepias syriaca (broadleaf milkweed)[4]
Cirsium vulgare (Spear Thistle)[4]
Rudbeckia hirta (Black-eyed Susan)[4]
Trifolium pratense (Red Clover)[4]

External References

NatureServe Explorer

Citations

Attributes / relations provided by
1Myers, P., R. Espinosa, C. S. Parr, T. Jones, G. S. Hammond, and T. A. Dewey. 2006. The Animal Diversity Web (online). Accessed February 01, 2010 at animaldiversity.org
2Butterflies of Canada, Canadian Biodiversity Information Facility
3Jorrit H. Poelen, James D. Simons and Chris J. Mungall. (2014). Global Biotic Interactions: An open infrastructure to share and analyze species-interaction datasets. Ecological Informatics.
4Study of Northern Virginia Ecology
5HOSTS - a Database of the World's Lepidopteran Hostplants Gaden S. Robinson, Phillip R. Ackery, Ian J. Kitching, George W. Beccaloni AND Luis M. Hernández
Abstract provided by DBpedia licensed under a Creative Commons License
Species taxanomy provided by GBIF Secretariat (2022). GBIF Backbone Taxonomy. Checklist dataset https://doi.org/10.15468/39omei accessed via GBIF.org on 2023-06-13; License: CC BY 4.0