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Monarch butterfly
Black veins divide the monarch’s orange wings into long panels. Caterpillars eat milkweed leaves, including common milkweed in parts of the East and showy milkweed in parts of the West. Swamp milkweed is another host where it grows in naturally damp ground.
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Papilio glaucus
An eastern tiger swallowtail usually shows black stripes on yellow wings, though some females are dark. The caterpillars use leaves of trees such as tulip poplar and wild black cherry. Watch the trees as well as the flowers when adults visit an eastern garden.
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Papilio polyxenes
The black swallowtail has a row of yellow marks along the margins of dark wings and some blue near the hindwing tails. Its caterpillars can feed on dill, parsley, and carrot leaves, making an herb or vegetable bed a likely place to spot them.
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Vanessa cardui
Painted ladies have orange markings on dark wings and several small eyespots under the hindwing. Caterpillars can live on many plants, including native thistles and some mallows. A leaf loosely drawn together with silk can conceal a developing caterpillar.
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Vanessa atalanta
A red-orange band cuts across each dark forewing of the red admiral. Caterpillars use plants in the nettle family, including wood nettle and false nettle. Check those leaves for feeding damage and small folds that can hide a caterpillar.
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Nymphalis antiopa
The mourning cloak’s dark wings are edged with a pale border and a row of blue dots. Its caterpillars feed together in groups when young and use trees such as black willow, American elm, and paper birch.
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Junonia coenia
The common buckeye’s oversized eyespots stand out when it opens its wings on bare ground. Its caterpillars use low plants, including some plantains, frogfruits, and false foxgloves. The plants can be easy to overlook beneath the flowers that attract adults.
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Gulf fritillary
Look beneath the orange wings for bright silvery spots. Gulf fritillary caterpillars feed on passionflower vines, including maypop in much of the Southeast. Eggs and caterpillars on the fresh growth tell you the vine is serving as a nursery.
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Epargyreus clarus
The silver-spotted skipper is brown with an irregular pale patch under the hindwing. Caterpillars use woody members of the pea family. These include false indigos in the genus Amorpha and honey locust, depending on the region.
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Phoebis sennae
The cloudless sulphur crosses sunny spaces in a flash of yellow. Caterpillars use plants in the pea family, especially sennas and relatives such as partridge pea. They may look greener on leaves and yellower when feeding among flowers.
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Battus philenor
A pipevine swallowtail has dark upper wings and a striking underside with orange marks against an iridescent hindwing. Its caterpillars need particular pipevines. Examples include California pipevine in the West and Virginia snakeroot in parts of the East.
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American lady
An American lady’s hindwing underside usually has two large eyespots. Look for the caterpillars on plants in the daisy family, including native pussytoes and pearly everlasting, where they can sit inside leaves held with silk.
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Heliconius charithonia
The zebra longwing’s narrow black wings carry pale yellow stripes. In Florida, look to locally native passionflower vines such as corkystem passionflower for its caterpillars. This is a familiar southern species with a much more limited range than the painted lady.
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Papilio troilus
A spicebush swallowtail is dark with a wash of blue-green or blue across the hindwings. Its caterpillars feed on spicebush and sassafras and can draw a leaf together for shelter. On the caterpillar, the conspicuous eye markings are separate from its tiny true eyes.
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Asterocampa celtis
The hackberry emperor has brown wings with pale spots and several eyespots. Its caterpillars use hackberry trees, including common hackberry and sugarberry. The adults sometimes land on people or damp ground instead of visiting flowers.
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