What's in Your Backyard - Swallowtails

Chequered Swallowtail

While birds are the predominant species in our gardens, many other critters inhabit the yard. In this post, I embark on a new thread highlighting the fun things we see. (Don’t worry, there are many more species of birds to cover in the Anguilla Backyard Birding thread.)

In October 2022, I posted about the masses of Florida White Butterflies seen in Anguilla. They were here for several weeks, and today we see one or two around.

Now that Spring is upon us, a new beauty has popped into the garden - the Chequered Swallowtail.

So what do we know about Swallowtails? Wikipedia tells us the following:

“Swallowtail butterflies are large, colorful butterflies in the family Papilionidae, and include over 550 species. Though the majority are tropical, members of the family inhabit every continent except Antarctica.”

Many species of this butterfly have tails that descend from their hindwings. Not all do, however. Case in point: the Chequered Swallowtail above. This brightly colored specimen is mainly black and yellow with two red patches in the tail area. When the wings fold, you can see the rust and blue patches. The pinstriped body and legs make this species show off.

Chequered Swallowtail Wing Display

Originating in Asia and Australia, the Chequered Swallowtail was first seen in the Caribbean in 2004 in the Dominican Republic. It has since spread to other islands in the region.

Its preferred diet is citrus plants gaining the common names Lime Butterfly, Lime Swallowtail, and Lemon Butterfly. It has a relatively fast reproductive cycle making it detrimental economically in the regions it inhabits.

This individual was particularly attracted to the Sage plant in my yard and kept circling back to it. The second one I saw was wandering around the yard, visiting different plants. According to the literature, it prefers herbs and bushes with blue or purple flowers.

Sadly, this species has the shortest lifespan of all Swallowtails. The adult male lives for approximately four days, and the female survives only a week. If the lifecycle doesn’t kill them, they are on the menu for Common Ground Lizards.

While I see just a few individuals of these species annually, they add pizzazz to the garden!