The King of Butterflies

The King of Butterflies

Female

Common Name: Monarch Butterfly (sometimes called the Milkweed Butterfly) 
Scientific Name: Danaus plexippus

Special Characteristics:
The monarch needs no camouflage because it is poisonous to predators; in fact, its vivid colors are designed to ward off critters that may want to eat it.  The monarch is poisonous because the developing larvae ingest toxins from the milkweed plant as they feed on the leaves.  These chemicals remain permanently in the monarch’s system, even after the caterpillar metamorphoses to a butterfly.  The monarch’s survival is closely linked to the chemical defense system derived from the milkweed toxins and the nutrition supplied to the developing larvae.

Male

The larvae live and feed exclusively on milkweed plants, but the butterflies hang out on a variety of different plants.

Monarchs, like many other animals, migrate to warmer climes for the winter.  These little butterflies fly up to 6,000 miles round-trip between their summer homes in North America and their winter homes in South America and Mexico.  It takes them up to two months to travel each leg of the journey.  Each butterfly only makes the trip once, and then its great-grandchildren make the trip the following year. In Mexico, the monarchs sleep the winter away in the branches and the trunks of fir trees.  Sometimes a branch gets so heavy with monarchs that it breaks off and falls to the ground, scattering sleepy monarchs everywhere.

You can tell the male monarch butterfly from the female by the two black spots on his hind wings and the thinner black webbing within the wings.  The female's webbing is thicker and she has no identifying wing spot.