Hi Misssherry, I'm curious, what host plant attracts your Giant Swallowtails? I have rue seeds coming in the mail any day now. They may not be ready this year but hopefully I will have a bunch of rue next year. I also have a meyer (I think) lemon plant in a large pot that stays indoors during the winter but it has never attracted Giant Swallowtails when it is outside during the summer.

Kellybird, usually the favorite host plant for giant swallowtails here is Ptelea trifoliata - the common names for this plant are hops tree or wafer ash, but it's not related to hops vines or ash trees, it's in the citrus family.
This butterfly came from rue - I have five rue plants in my garden, and they're used by both giant and black swallowtails. Some of the caterpillars that I raised in the same group with the above butterfly came from my 'Louisiana Sweet' orange tree. I LOVE this tree! It comes through the winter with only minimal cold damage on just a little bit of the newest, new growth, and it's very vigorous - I've had it about 4? years, and it's about ?12' tall and about ? 7' wide. It's covered with little green oranges right now.
The rue plants and the orange tree are both evergreen, and I found this batch of hatchling cats early in the season, before the Pteleas had leafed out, on new growth on the rues and the orange tree - these make new growth early each spring. Most of the Pteleas are real slow to get new growth in the spring, although a few behave differently from the rest and get new leaves fairly early - there's no rhyme or reason to it.
I've had a 'Meyer Improved' lemon, and it was so puny and got so damaged by even minor frosts that I got rid of it. I only found one or two giant swallowtail cats on it the entire time I had it. I read an article about citrus trees, and it said that 'Louisiana Sweet' oranges and 'Owari' satsumas are the most cold hardy of the citrus trees, and that 'Louisiana Sweet' is very vigorous - I can attest to that! I'm really too far north to be growing citrus, but it's working out with this one.
Sherry

Down here in the deep south, I am not quite certain what the native host tree is, but I have raised them from my Tangelo tree.
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Some more incredible photos. Thanks for sharing.

your very welcome. Thank you for looking!

-Nick

Those giant swallowtail cats are so, well, interesting looking! I love raising them, because they're SO easy to raise, totally opposite from zebra swallowtails.
Three more giants emerged today, plus two more American ladies - I love it!
Sherry

Cool, I agree they are very easy to raise, they don't move much and don't eat a whole lot. I wish I had more time to raise caterpillars. I take it back, GST's are a little more common than SBST's.

But you wanna know what's cool? Where I work in the city, I always see butterflies in the parking lot, when I am outside on break or lunch. I've seen Gulf frits (more commonly), monarchs, queens, GST's and even a Spice bush one time!

Makes my day better when I see them. I ask myself, where could there be a host for a Spice bush swallowtail this far in the city? It's amazing.

-Nick

Are there nectar plants in the islands of the parking lot where you work, Nick? If so, they could be flying in from pretty far away, and the parking lot plants are an oasis for them.
Camphor tree/cinammomum camphora is common in cities. It's one of those tough Asian species that spreads everywhere. It must get too cold for it in winter where I am, 35 miles inland from the Gulf, because I rarely ever see it here, but on the Coast/Biloxi/Gulfport, it grows everywhere. I think that would be the most likely host plant for your south Florida spicebush swallowtails.
Sherry

I released another giant swallowtail today (my 9th of the year so far) and this one stopped long enough to bask on an azalea long enough for me to get his picture. You can see how much thicker the center part of his horizontal bar is than the female in the above picture, also his spots are bigger -
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Sherry