Iberian Scarce Swallowtail

• GeneralA large striped butterfly with tails on its wings; it soars for long spells along the ridges.
• It practises hilltopping: the males gather on summits and on the highest points of the ground, where they wait for females, behaviour that means it is often seen on cols and ridges.
• It is the sister species of the European scarce swallowtail, Iphiclides podalirius, from which it separated relatively recently and with which it hybridises in southern France.
• It is told apart from the scarce swallowtail of the rest of Europe, Iphiclides podalirius, by its almost white rather than yellowish ground colour; it was long considered a subspecies of it, and its separation as a species in its own right is still debated.
• It glides for long stretches without beating its wings, riding the currents along the hillsides — a very characteristic flight, recognisable from a distance.
• The tails on the hindwings, together with the blue and orange spots at their base, form a false head: the bird strikes there and the butterfly escapes losing only a scrap of wing.
• The caterpillar is green, flattened and slug-like, and eats the leaves of blackthorn, almond and other stone-fruit trees.
• It is one of the most common and most visible butterflies of the interior of the Iberian Peninsula in spring.

Skeleton type

Invertebrate - chitin exoskeleton (insect)

Habitat & environment

Sunny slopes with blackthorn and fruit trees

Sources consulted: Tolman y Lewington, Butterflies of Britain and Europe; Wiemers et al., checklist de mariposas europeas; Asociación Zerynthia