Queen: a two-minute wildlife lesson

Butterflies of the Americas · day 3 of 7

Five facts

1. The queen is a cousin of the monarch. You can tell it apart by its darker brown colour and wings without stripes.
2. Before laying, a female scratches a leaf with her short front legs to check if it is the right plant for her eggs.
3. Its caterpillar wears three pairs of long black filaments: one pair on the head and two pairs farther back.
4. Its pale green chrysalis is often dotted with gold. It hangs from a button of silk, a bit like a pendant.
5. In Florida tests, queens raised on one milkweed tasted awful to birds. Those raised on a poorer plant were fine to eat.

The quiz

1. How can you tell a queen from a monarch?

• It is bright blue
• It is darker brown with no wing stripes (correct)
• It has long tails on its wings
• It is much smaller than a bee

The queen is darker brown and lacks the monarch's wing stripes.

2. What does a female queen use to test leaves for her eggs?

• Her antennae only
• Her wings
• Her short front legs (correct)
• Her long tongue

She scratches the leaf with her short forelegs to judge it.

3. What does the queen caterpillar have on its body?

• Three pairs of long black filaments (correct)
• Thick fur all over
• Sharp spines on every segment
• A horn on its tail only

It has three pairs of black fleshy filaments along its body.

4. What does the queen's chrysalis look like?

• A brown dead leaf on the ground
• A ball of white fluff
• A spiky black cone
• A green pendant with gold spots (correct)

It is pale green, often with gold spots, and hangs like a pendant.

5. In Florida tests, what decided how bad a queen tasted to birds?

• The colour of its eggs
• The plant its caterpillar ate (correct)
• How fast it flies
• The time of day

Its taste depends on the plant it was raised on as a caterpillar.

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