Anise Swallowtail Butterfly in My Garden

Various swallowtail butterflies visit my garden. They prefer the parsley and carrots in my garden and the fennel in the alley. Usually they flit about so that I can rarely capture a photo. Today, this anise swallowtail cooperated and I snapped repeatedly. It zigzagged between the parsley, the artichoke and green beans but more often returned to the parsley plant. Frequently the swallowtails light upon the citrus—orange and tangerine trees.

See images of anise swallowtail butterflies, the egg, larva and pupa stages and read more about them.

I submitted the above photo to iNaturalist to confirm my ID. You can join iNaturalist at their website, iNaturalist.org. Here’s a brief description from the website:

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Every observation can contribute to biodiversity science, from the rarest butterfly to the most common backyard weed. We share your findings with scientific data repositories like the Global Biodiversity Information Facility to help scientists find and use your data. All you have to do is observe.

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