Insects › Swallowtails and Parnassians

Black Swallowtail

Papilio polyxenes

Easily confused with

Study checks a spoken answer against these, and tells you which one you named.

Where it is recorded

Records by month in Texas.January 1,517, February 1,451, March 1,649, April 3,201, May 3,674, June 2,470, July 1,202, August 864, September 1,026, October 1,093, November 1,424, December 1,380.
United States71,304
Texas19,909
Canada16,739
Ontario12,964
Illinois7,095
Ohio6,122
New York5,978
Pennsylvania4,354
Vermont4,132
Massachusetts3,910

Counts show where people looked, not only where it lives.

Traits

Physical

  • MetamorphosisUndergoes dramatic body transformation during developmentFrom its classification
  • ExoskeletonHas a hard external skeletonFrom its classification

Group and habits

  • Animal pollinatorDescends from an animal lineage whose members commonly pollinate flowers.Inferred from its group

Classification

KingdomAnimals · Animalia
PhylumArthropods · Arthropoda
ClassInsects · Insecta
OrderButterflies and Moths · Lepidoptera
FamilySwallowtails and Parnassians · Papilionidae
GenusCommon Swallowtails · Papilio

Sources

Remember the name next time.

Practise Black Swallowtail with real photos from different observers. Say the name out loud, and it comes back just before you would forget it.