MissSherry, are they actually different colors or is it the way the sun hits them?

As you know, I'm raising three little SBS cats this year so I may have a little better chance for a photo-op this year.

The biggest cat has his "snake eyes" but the two younger ones still just look like bird droppings.

Do you think they grow more slowly than the other swallowtails? Or is it just the Sassafras that I use to feed them?

I'm sure there's an actual difference in the color, Mary Ann - I've been looking at them in all different lights for several years, and a green one is always green while a bluish one is always blue. Also, I've read that their hindwing colors can vary from light bluish to green, so I'm not the only one that's noticed.
My spicebush cats always grow pretty slowly, compared to other swallowtails. I've got a spicebush growing in a pot that I plan to plant this fall or winter - I hope that one day they'll lay some eggs on it, and I can see if they grow faster on spicebush than sassafras.
My PVSs, BSTs and GSTs grow like weeds, but my tiger, spicebush and palamedes swallowtails always take longer - the slow growing swallowtails are closely related to each other, so maybe it's just a genetic thing.
MissSherry

Gorgeous pics. Butterflies, I think, are a lot like people�"very unique! :)

CalSherry

Is it possible the amount of sun and shade (or overcast day or time of day) in which they're viewed makes a difference? Look at the background of each photo. One looks yellow-green -- not really the usual color of stokesia foliage. The other photo can be manipulated in Photohouse or another program to approximately the same shade of green and hue of background and the butterfly looks greener like the first one.

I first noticed this phenomena in photographing daylilies where some were in shade and some in sun in the same bed, same cultivar, same clump. The photos in shade would look pink, the ones in sun orange; yet they looked the same to the eye while I was making photos.

Not to say that the butterflies themselves do not vary, but the comparison skews when the light is not exactly the same.

Nell

Yes, Nell, when I took the picture of the green SBST, the sun was shining on it at an angle that might have made the color a little skewed, but my stokesias are a variety of different shades of green, so those may really be somewhat pale green. It may also be that the green SBST is older than the blue/green one. I've noticed that newly emerged males usually have more blue, and the more ragged they are, the more likely they are to be green. However, I've released some brand new ones that were green, and I've seen pictures of one in Florida that was silver/gray, so I think there really are differences in their color.
I think they're all gorgeous!!
MissSherry

Miss sherry,
When I first starting getting Spicebush, I noticed the same thing and for a while thought that the blueish ones were the females and the greenish ones were males. Then I had the Eastern Black Swallowtails confused with the true female Swallowtails! I think you were the one who staightened me out on the female situation once when I actually had females of both at the same time. But anyway, I have had males that are more blue and some that are more greenish.

Yes, many female swallowtails have blue at the base of their hindwings - even female palamedes swallowtails have a little - and it's a true blue, not the silvery or aqua blue you see on some male spicebush swallowtails.
Here's a female spicebush swallowtail -
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MissSherry