Male Monarch Butterfly

by Catherine Sherman

Title

Male Monarch Butterfly

Artist

Catherine Sherman

Medium

Photograph - Photography

Description

"Male Monarch Butterfly on a Milkweed" by Catherine Sherman.

A male monarch sips nectar from a flowering milkweed at the edge of a pond in Great Plains Nature Center in Wichita, Kansas. . Milkweed is essential in the monarch lifestyle and is the only kind of plant that Monarch caterpillars will eat. Toxins in the milkweed make the caterpillar toxic to predators.

Males have a black spot (see photo) on a vein on each hind wing that is not present on the female. These spots are made of specialized scales which produce a chemical used during courtship in many species of butterflies and moths, although such a chemical does not seem to be important in Monarch courtship. The ends of the abdomens are also different in males and females, and females often look darker than males and have wider veins on their wings.

Monarch Butterflies that live east east of the Rocky Mountains overwinter every year in Mexico, making an amazing multi-generational migration every year. The butterflies fall south in the fall, and their descendants return north in the spring.

Featured in "Groovy Butterflies" group (09/04/2018); "Midwest American Photography" group (09/04/2018); "Your Very Best Photography" group (09/30/2018); "Camera Art" group (10/06/2018); "Ten Plus" group (10/12/2018); "Go Take a Hike" group (04/06/2021); "USA Photographers Only" group (05/05/2021)

Uploaded

August 24th, 2018

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