Animalia > Arthropoda > Insecta > Lepidoptera > Nymphalidae > Danaus > Danaus plexippus

Danaus plexippus (Monarch Butterfly)

Synonyms:

Wikipedia Abstract

The monarch butterfly or simply monarch (Danaus plexippus) is a milkweed butterfly (subfamily Danainae) in the family Nymphalidae. Other common names depending on region include milkweed, common tiger, wanderer, and black veined brown. It may be the most familiar North American butterfly, and is considered an iconic pollinator species. Its wings feature an easily recognizable black, orange, and white pattern, with a wingspan of 8.9–10.2 cm (3½–4 in) The viceroy butterfly is similar in color and pattern, but is markedly smaller and has an extra black stripe across each hindwing.
View Wikipedia Record: Danaus plexippus

Infraspecies

Danaus plexippus bipunctata
Danaus plexippus curassavicae
Danaus plexippus leucogyne
Danaus plexippus megalippe
Danaus plexippus menippe
Danaus plexippus misippiformis
Danaus plexippus nigrippus
Danaus plexippus plexippus
Danaus plexippus portoricensis
Danaus plexippus tobagi

Attributes

Litter Size [1]  663
Migration [2]  Intercontinental
Wing Span [3]  3.543 inches (.09 m)

Protected Areas

Emblem of

Prey / Diet

Prey / Diet Overlap

Predators

Icterus abeillei (Black-backed Oriole)[9]
Ochetellus glaber (black house ant)[5]
Peromyscus melanotis (black-eared mouse)[10]
Pheucticus melanocephalus (Black-headed Grosbeak)[9]

Providers

Parasite of 
Gomphocarpus fruticosus (Arizona milkweed)[5]
Gomphocarpus physocarpus (balloonplant)[5]

Consumers

External References

NatureServe Explorer

Citations

Attributes / relations provided by
♦ 1Body size, egg size, and their interspecific relationships with ecological and life history traits in butterflies (Lepidoptera: Papilionoidea, Hesperioidea), Enrique García-Barros, Biological Journal of the Linnean Society (2000), 70: 251–284
♦ 2Myers, P., R. Espinosa, C. S. Parr, T. Jones, G. S. Hammond, and T. A. Dewey. 2006. The Animal Diversity Web (online). Accessed February 01, 2010 at animaldiversity.org
♦ 3BUTTERFLIES OF AUCKLAND, D.R. Cowley and J.M. Cowley, TANE 29, 1983, pp. 181-192
♦ 4HOSTS - a Database of the World's Lepidopteran Hostplants Gaden S. Robinson, Phillip R. Ackery, Ian J. Kitching, George W. Beccaloni AND Luis M. Hernández
♦ 5Jorrit H. Poelen, James D. Simons and Chris J. Mungall. (2014). Global Biotic Interactions: An open infrastructure to share and analyze species-interaction datasets. Ecological Informatics.
♦ 6Biological Records Centre Database of Insects and their Food Plants
♦ 7Species Interactions of Australia Database, Atlas of Living Australia, Version ala-csv-2012-11-19
♦ 8New Zealand Institute for Plant & Food Research Plant-SyNZ™ database
♦ 9"Antipredator Adaptations by Monarch Butterflies", Kim A. Pike
♦ 10Peromyscus melanotis, Sergio Ticul Alvarez-Castaneda, MAMMALIAN SPECIES No. 764, pp. 1–4 (2005)
Abstract provided by DBpedia licensed under a Creative Commons License
Species taxanomy provided by GBIF Secretariat (2022). GBIF Backbone Taxonomy. Checklist dataset https://doi.org/10.15468/39omei accessed via GBIF.org on 2023-06-13; License: CC BY 4.0