All a-Flutter 4

4 comments

1. james

   August 6, 2017 at 10:38 am

   me thinks monarch?

    
2. Frank

   August 6, 2017 at 9:54 pm

   Per the link in the post, it’s a member of the Monarch family, but I don’t think it is a true Monarch because the plant is not milkweed or a milkweed relative; it’s a lantana. I could be wrong, natch; I trained as an historian, not as a bugologist.

   My brother has planted some milkweed cousins and has attracted some true Monarchs. He sent me the pictures, but I did not post them here.

   Thanks for visiting.

    
3. james

   August 7, 2017 at 3:45 pm

   If i’m not mistaken, the butterfly(monarch) can drink nectar from many flowers. It lays eggs primarily on milkweed and the caterpillar eats only that one toxic food, leaving the insect toxic to predators. Not sure though, when i was a kid there used to be millions of monarchs here in southern quebec, and much more milkweed, thanks to roundup and reforestation of marginal agricultural lands, a lot less now.

    
4. Frank

   August 7, 2017 at 10:18 pm

   Follow the link in my original post; it points to a marvelous website for identifying butterflies. It seems to me that my picture looks most like the viceroy, but I’ve been wrong before. Let’s see, it was back in aught seven . . . .

   I would be quite happy to be persuaded that it was a true Monarch.