The swallowtail butterfly is characterized by its tail like appendages at the bottom of its wings. There are actually over 500 species of swallowtails and in addition to their interesting shape they have beautiful colors and markings. While predominately sticking to the tropical regions, you can find some species are nearly every continent. The swallowtail is from the family Papilionidae which include some of the largest butterflies in existence.

The swallowtail has beautiful colors with a striking bright yellow and black and usually has some blue color near the bottom of the wings. It is actually one of the most common butterflies in the eastern United States and, in fact, was named the Virginia State insect in 1991. Some of the swallowtails have eye spots near the back of the wing which is meant to fake out its predators into thinking that the back of the butterfly is really the front. This allows them to escape with, perhaps, only a bite taken out of the tail on their wing.

The caterpillar of the swallowtail butterfly has an interesting trait that no other caterpillar has. It has an organ called in an osmeterium which can be used to omit a smelly secretion to ward off enemies with. This organ is usually not visible but if the caterpillar feels threatened he can expose it and repel his enemy.

The spicebush swallowtail is one of the most common ones and this butterfly actually has a black wings with spots along the edges and red "eyes" on the back along with some blue markings as well. This butterfly likes to hang in sunlight drenched openings near the forest. It's called the spicebush because the caterpillars are typically found on the leaves of the spicebush.

The swallowtail butterfly has a few species that can commonly be seen in the eastern US and this includes, of course, the spicebush swallowtail, the Black swallowtail, the tiger swallowtail into the pipeline swallowtail.