Monarch Butterfly

Lepisma saccharinum

Monarch Butterfly

“ Well, I must endure the presence of a few caterpillars if I wish to become acquainted with the butterflies. ”

– Antoine de Saint-Exupery, from The Little Prince

Scientific Taxonomy & Character Information

Domain: Eukaryota

Kingdom: Animalia

Phylum: Arthropoda

Class: Insecta

Order: Lepidoptera

Family: Nymphalidae

Genus: Danaus

Species: Danaus plexippus

Descendant: milkweed butterflies

Named by: Carl Linnaeus

Year Published: 1758

Size: 4 inches in length; with a wingspan of 8.9–10.2 cm (3.5–4.0 in) in length; 1 gram in weight

Type: Insects (Butterflies)

Title: 

Pantheon: Terran

Time Period: Holocene

Alignment: Passive

Diet: Herbivorous

Elements: Nature, fae, air

Inflicts: Poison

Weaknesses: Fire, air, ice, electric, metal

Casualties: n/a

Based On: itself

Conservation Status: Least Concern / Endangered / Apparently Secure - NatureServe

Least Concern (IUCN 3.1) (entire species)

Endangered (IUCN 3.1) (migratory subspecies)

Monarch Butterfly (Danaus plexippus) is the species of milkweed butterflies considered as poisonous butterfly due to beautiful orange wings contains toxins from milkweed plants. Located across the world except most African to non-northern South American countries.

Etymology

The name "monarch" is believed to have been given in honor of King William III of England, as the butterfly's main color is that of the king's secondary title, Prince of Orange. The monarch was originally described by Carl Linnaeus in his Systema Naturae of 1758 and placed in the genus Papilio. In 1780, Jan Krzysztof Kluk used the monarch as the type species for a new genus, Danaus.


Danaus (Ancient Greek Δαναός), a great-grandson of Zeus, was a mythical king in Egypt or Libya, who founded Argos; Plexippus (Πλήξιππος) was one of the 50 sons of Aegyptus, the twin brother of Danaus. In Homeric Greek, his name means "one who urges on horses", i.e., "rider" or "charioteer". Robert Michael Pyle suggested Danaus is a masculinized version of Danaë (Greek Δανάη), Danaus's great-great-granddaughter and a princess, to whom Zeus came as a shower of gold, which seemed to him a more appropriate source for the name of this butterfly.

Physical Appearance

The adult emerges from its chrysalis after about two weeks of pupation. The emergent adult hangs upside down for several hours while it pumps fluids and air into its wings, which expand, dry, and stiffen. The butterfly then extends and retracts its wings. Once conditions allow, it flies and feeds on a variety of nectar plants. During the breeding season, adults reach sexual maturity in 4–5 days. However, the migrating generation does not reach maturity until overwintering is complete.


The adult's wingspan ranges from 8.9 to 10.2 centimeters (3.5 to 4.0 in). The upper sides of the wings are tawny orange, the veins and margins are black, and two series of small white spots occur in the margins. Monarch forewings also have a few orange spots near their tips. Wing undersides are similar, but the tips of forewings and hindwings are yellow brown instead of tawny orange and the white spots are larger. The shape and color of the wings change at the beginning of the migration and appear redder and more elongated than later migrants. Wings size and shape differ between migratory and nonmigratory monarchs. Monarchs from eastern North America have larger and more angular forewings than those in the western population.


In eastern North American populations, overall wing size in the physical dimensions of wings varies. Males tend to have larger wings than females, and are typically heavier than females. Both males and females have similar thoracic dimensions. Female monarchs tended to have thicker wings, which is thought to convey greater tensile strength and reduce the likelihood of being damaged during migration. Additionally, females had lower wing loading than males, which would mean females require less energy to fly.


To prepare for the pupal or chrysalis stage, the caterpillar chooses a safe place for pupation, where it spins a silk pad on a downward-facing horizontal surface. At this point, it turns around and securely latches on with its last pair of hind legs and hangs upside down, in the form of the letter J. After "J-hanging" for about 12–16 hours, it soon straightens out its body and goes into peristalsis some seconds before its skin splits behind its head. It then sheds its skin over a period of a few minutes, revealing a green chrysalis. At first, the chrysalis is long, soft, and somewhat amorphous, but over a few hours, it compacts into its distinct shape – an opaque, pale-green chrysalis with small golden dots near the bottom, and a gold-and-black rim around the dorsal side near the top.


The first-instar caterpillar that emerges from the egg is pale green or grayish-white, shiny, and almost translucent, with a large, black head. It lacks banding coloration or tentacles. The larvae or caterpillar eats its egg case and begins to feed on milkweed with a circular motion, often leaving a characteristic, arc-shaped hole in the leaf. Older first-instar larvae have dark stripes on a greenish background and develop small bumps that later become front tentacles. The first instar is usually between 2 and 6 mm (0.079 and 0.236 in) long.


The second-instar larva develops a characteristic pattern of white, yellow, and black transverse bands. The larva has a yellow triangle on the head and two sets of yellow bands around this central triangle. It is no longer translucent, and is covered in short setae. Pairs of black tentacles begin to grow, a larger pair on the thorax and a smaller pair on the abdomen. The second instar is usually between 6 mm (0.24 in) and 1 cm (0.39 in) long.


The third-instar larva has more distinct bands and the two pairs of tentacles become longer. Legs on the thorax differentiate into a smaller pair near the head and larger pairs further back. Third-instar larvae usually feed using a cutting motion on leaf edges. The third instar is usually between 1 and 1.5 cm (0.39 and 0.59 in) long.


The name evokes the species' ability to hibernate and metamorphize. Adult monarch butterflies possess two pairs of brilliant orange-red wings, featuring black veins and white spots along the edges. Males, who possess distinguishing black dots along the veins of their wings, are slightly bigger than females. Each adult butterfly lives only about four to five weeks.

Abilities

In both caterpillar and butterfly form, monarchs are aposematic, warding off predators with a bright display of contrasting colors to warn potential predators of their undesirable taste and poisonous characteristics. One monarch researcher emphasizes that predation on eggs, larvae or adults is natural, since monarchs are part of the food chain, thus people should not take steps to kill predators of monarchs.

Weaknesses

Ecology

The host plants used by the monarch caterpillar include milkweed, Asclepias curassavica, or tropical milkweed, is often planted as an ornamental in butterfly gardens. Year-round plantings in the USA are controversial and criticised, as they may be the cause of new overwintering sites along the U.S. Gulf Coast, leading to year-round breeding of monarchs. Although larvae eat only milkweed, adult monarchs feed on the nectar of many plants, including others. Monarchs obtain moisture and minerals from damp soil and wet gravel, a behavior known as mud-puddling. The monarch has also been noticed puddling at an oil stain on pavement.

Behavior

Harmless.

Distribution and Habitat

The Monarch Butterfly, Danaus plexippus, is primarily distributed throughout the Americas, from southern Canada, through the United States, Mexico, the Caribbean, and Central America, to South America, north of the Amazon Basin. In North America, this species undergoes an iconic annual migration. Every year, millions of Monarch Butterflies travel from overwintering sites in Central Mexico and coastal California, to summer breeding grounds throughout the United States and Canada. By the late summer and fall, after several generations, individuals embark on the return journey, traveling distances up to 4,000 km. However, in much of its neotropical range within the Americas and elsewhere, this species does not participate in continental scale migrations and can be found year-round as a resident. Some short distance seasonal migrations, from lowlands to highlands or coastal to inland areas, often still take place in these regions. The population level of the white morph in Oahu is nearing 10%. On other Hawaiian islands, the white morph occurs at a relatively low frequency. White monarchs (D. p. p. "form nivosus") have been found throughout the world, including Australia, New Zealand, Indonesia, and the United States.


Conservation Status

Due to yearly monitoring of the migratory sub-species (Danaus plexippus plexippus) at over wintering sites in California and Mexico, current population estimates for a portion of the population are available. During the 2020-2021 winter season, surveys found monarchs occupying 2.10 hectares of forest in Mexico. While the estimated number of Monarchs per hectare varies from 6.9 to 60.9 million, 21.1 million is widely used as a best estimate. Therefore, there were an estimated 44 million butterflies at overwintering sites in Mexico during the 2020-2021 season. During the same season in California, surveys documented only 1,914 butterflies (by the Xerces Society Western Monarch Thanksgiving Count since 2021).


The counts for the western migratory population have never been so low and experts have suggested that the migration is vulnerable to collapse once population size dips below the threshold of 30,000 individuals. Despite reliable data for the migratory sub-species, total population size estimates are unknown for D. plexippus at the species level, because there is little population data available for the non-migratory sub-species D. p. megalippe, which occupies a substantial portion of the total range from the Caribbean south, through Central America, to northern portions of South America.


Various threats have been implicated in the decline of monarch populations, including the degradation and loss of breeding and migratory habitat, the degradation and loss of overwintering habitat, climate change and the associated increases in severe weather events, pesticides including herbicides, insecticides, and fungicides, roadside mowing regimes, invasive species, urban development, logging, and disease.

Tamed

Coming soon

Lore

Coming soon

Gallery

Foreign Languages

Coming soon

Trivia