No, it is not the rock group. Nor is it an ABBA song. It is a butterfly species related to Monarchs called Queens. As a result of the residual effects of hurricane Ian, our community butterfly garden has no surviving milkweed plants. It does, however, have other plants that attract things that flutter by. At first it looked like they were Monarchs but on closer inspection, as you can see in these photos, this species is very similar. They are Queens and they are dancing and mating.
The feature image is a male Queen with the dorsal surface pointed toward the female and us. Additionally, there is a female Queen showing the ventral surface detail. . The two dark spots on the ventral surface medial veins of the distal wings indicate a male gender.
We have discussed Monarchs on these three occasions Monarch, previous, postings. This species will be the standard for comparison for this discussion. The Queen has several markings that make it easy to distinguish. It has a darker, more red/brown coloration. The wing veins are less pronounced. It is the smaller of the two species.The Monarch is a strict milkweed feeder. The Queens feed on many plants and are not exclusive to milkweed. Also they should not be confused with other related butterflies called Viceroys or Soldiers (not shown here).
Also not to be confused with the Gulf Fritillary which is a totally different species.
Watching the Queens was easy because they were very interested in pairing with one another at this time. These observations were made during the first week of October 2023 at 8:30 AM. GPS location 26.3389184, -81.8085888. There were other butterflies present including Monarchs which were very low in number as well as Polydamas swallowtails. The dozens of Queens were literally dancing around one another in what appeared to be mating preliminaries.
I spent about an hour admiring the beauty of the butterflies and was astonished to see this “dance” exhibited by many couples. I have never seen so many Queens in one place at one time. I hope to see the eggs and caterpillars that I expect will follow during the next few weeks. I will also be on the look out for the related Soldiers and Viceroys.
References:
Butterflies and Moths of North America
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