A female spicebush swallowtail butterfly sips nectar from a musk thistle flower in the grassland habitat at Shaker Village of Pleasant Hill on a brutally hot day in Harrodsburg, Kentucky.
Spicebush Swallowtail Butterfly (Papilio troilus) | Shaker Village | Harrodsburg, KY
500mm | 1/1,250th second | f/8.0 | ISO720
From this angle it’s not easy to tell males from females - the undersides of their wings are identical. I know this is a male only from another photo where the top of the wing is visible. Males have a blue-green wash on the hind-wing. The females are a lighter blue. The spicebush swallowtail is also quite similar to the black swallowtail. The pattern of orange dots on the underwing is slightly different, but they are more easily distinguished by the black swallowtail’s two rows of yellow dots on the upper surface of the wings, compared to a single row of white dots on this spicebush. The flower is a musk thistle (Carduus nutans) - yet another pretty, but invasive plant.