If I'm not mistaken, the top picture is a male black swallowtail (Papilio polyxenes) and the lower picture is a female eastern tiger swallowtail (Papilio glaucus) in it's black form. From what I've seen, the telltale is the yellow dot on the upper part of the wings, which tells you that it's a black swallowtail. Correct me if I'm wrong!!!!!!! I hope you don't mind, but I downloaded your pic to put in the arrows... The dot I'm referring to:

I get these 2 mixed up a lot, also. I really appreciate the extra hints, such as 1)the curvier body on the Spicebush as opposed to the straight body on the Tiger, 2)the bigger/flater kite shaped wings on the Tiger as opposed to the Spicebush wings being smaller and more cut/curvy shaped. Am I reading that right? Please correct me if I'm wrong. Just a couple more questions to clarify my muddled brain: 1) The Spicebush has white dots on the body and the dark form Tiger body is solid black? 2)The lunules are the white spots at the bottom end of the hind wing? The Spicebush has bigger, brighter, more defined lunules than the dark form Tiger? Sherry, I saw on another post that you recommend the book 'Butterflies of North America' by Brock & Kaufman. Is that your 'go to' book to help identify a butterfly? I bought the book 'The Life Cycles of Butterflies' and love it, but sometimes they don't have enough pictures of, or information about, various butterflies so that I can positively ID a butterfly. DH and I were going back and forth - back and forth on the pages of my book trying to ID a couple of pictures I had taken of butterflies on my butterfly bush. The body in the one you can see is straight and not spotted, wings are flat/kite-like and the lunules are small or almost non-existent...So... I think it is a dark form Tiger. I will try to post my pics on another thread. Thanks for helping me learn more. Betty

KC, I was disappointed, too, when the zoo changed their Butterfly exhibit to the Birds and the Bees exhibit 3-4 years ago. Hope for it to come back soon. But it's a wonderful zoo--I'm sure I'll find something. Terrene, I'm not sure what the black one is, or whether the one could actually be two different butterflies. Was wondering if one could be a Pipevine Swallowtail or Tiger Swallowtail (dark form)? After looking at a field guide I think I was wrong about it being a Black Swallowtail--no prominent white spots. New to this.

Skipper butterfly, family Hesperiidae. Pholisora catullus, Common Sootywing. http://bugguide.net/node/view/9569/bgimage