Anise swallowtail
The anise swallowtail is a big yellow and black butterfly with little tails on its back wings. Near the tails it has bright blue spots and orange eyespots with a black dot in the middle. You can see it on hills, in fields and even in town gardens.
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Fun facts
If you disturb the caterpillar, it pops out two bright orange horns behind its head that give off a nasty smell.
The young caterpillar is dark brown with a white band. It turns greener every time it changes its skin.
The caterpillar grows to about 5 centimetres long before it turns into a chrysalis.
Its chrysalis looks just like a thick little branch sticking out of the plant.
In the colder north, it spends the whole winter as a chrysalis.
Most asked questions about Anise swallowtail
?What does the anise swallowtail caterpillar eat?
It eats plants of the carrot family, like fennel, and sometimes citrus plants.
?How big is the anise swallowtail?
Its wings measure about 5 to 8 centimetres from tip to tip.
?Is the anise swallowtail caterpillar poisonous?
No. It can stick out smelly orange horns to scare enemies, but it is harmless to people.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Papilio zelicaon
- Group
- Butterflies
- Family
- Papilionidae
- Classification
- Insecta > Lepidoptera > Papilionidae
- Lives on
- North America
Where the facts come from
- Papilio zelicaon (Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0): what it looks like, where it lives, what it eats, sizes and fun facts, retold in simple words.
- Picture by Calibas. CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons. The round sticker of this bug is cut from the same picture.
If we got something wrong, sorry, we are bug fans, not a science journal. Tell us at hello@bugwiki.app and we will fix it.
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