The Queen of Monarch Butterfly Mimics

I have written several blog posts about monarch butterflies and have pictured queen butterflies in a couple of posts. (You can use the search box at the right to find them.) However I don't think I have discussed monarch butterfly mimics before. There are two butterfly species that mimic the monarch butterfly. It is thought that doing this affords them some protection from predators since birds generally leave monarch butterflies alone because they taste bad from feeding on milkweed as caterpillars. The two mimics are the viceroy butterfly and the queen butterfly. Viceroys are supposed to be in my area but I only recall having seen queen butterflies along with monarch butterflies. You can see one of each feeding on the same blue mist flower in the first photo. The queen butterfly is on the left with the monarch on the right side of the photo.

Until this week I did not realize that the queen butterfly caterpillar also mimics the monarch butterfly caterpillar. I was excited when I saw a small yellow, black and white banded caterpillar munching on a new milkweed shoot so I grabbed my camera to record it. While I was taking its picture, I was thinking that something seemed a bit off though from what I remembered monarch caterpillars looked like. My hunch was correct when I compared my images to those of monarch caterpillars, so now I had a mystery caterpillar eating milkweed that looked similar to a monarch caterpillar. What was it? I found out that it is a queen caterpillar. Queens have one more set of "horns", three instead of two to be exact, than monarch caterpillars. The monarch's are at each end, while the queen has an extra set near its midsection. While doing my research I also discovered that their chrysalises are almost identical. The queen's is a bit smaller and can take on a bit of a pink hue but unless they were side by side, I'm not sure I could ID which one I was looking at.

Indian Summer Clouds of Butterflies

Here in North Texas our extended Indian Summer came to an abrupt halt yesterday. The weather during the prior week was spectacular though and the butterflies took advantage of the sunshine, warmer temps and plentiful nectar in a patch of blue mistflower and a lantana bush in my backyard. Many varieties of butterflies were attracted to both, including some very late Monarch butterflies on their trip south.

The lantana bush seemed especially popular with the sulphur butterflies. It was alive with a cloud of predominantly yellow butterflies flitting from flower to flower. How many do you see in my photo? (Click to enlarge to make your job easier.)

Queen butterflies flocked to my patch of blue mistflower. A cloud of orange erupted when I walked too close to this area of the garden. In this photo they share the nectar bounty with other butterflies and insects.

Butterfly Sightings July 2015

While I was working in my yard today, I had the pleasure of seeing a variety of butterflies flitting through, sipping from my flowers or just hanging out. Many of the pictures in the following collage were taken today. Those that were taken previously are of the same species of butterfly spotted earlier. Noticeably absent (since I know what I saw this morning) is a tiger swallowtail. The ones I see anymore are always in a hurry and I don't think I have a digital photo of one. I know I have some tiger swallowtail pictures taken with my film SLR (remember those?) and I took a picture of a similar butterfly, a giant swallowtail, last week in Abilene. However I don't have a tiger swallowtail image easily available to add to the collage so you will just have to use your imagination or check out these images online. There is at least one other butterfly that I saw today that is not in the collage and plenty more that live in the area but that I just didn't see today.

Even though it has gotten hot and dry and there is not as much color in my garden as earlier this year, these lovely butterflies add interest and color as they go about their business. The two largest butterflies in the collage are a spicebush swallowtail and a queen butterfly. Click the image to enlarge it.