viceroy
Limenitis archippus
Identification: Wingspan 2 1/2 - 3 3/8 inches. Upperside is orange and black, resembling the Monarch, except the Viceroy has a black line across the hindwing and a single row of white dots in the black marginal band. Where Monarchs are rare in Florida, Georgia, and the Southwest, Viceroys are brown instead of orange and mimic the Queen.
Habitat: Moist open or shrubby areas such as lake and swamp edges, willow thickets, valley bottoms, wet meadows, and roadsides.
Garden Habit: During most of the day, males perch on vegetation or patrol around the host plants to find females. Females lay eggs at the tip of host plant leaves, depositing only two or three eggs on a plant before moving to another. Caterpillars eat their eggshells after they hatch, then at night feed on catkins and leaves. Young caterpillars make a ball of leaf bits, dung, and silk which hangs off the leaf on which they are feeding; the dangling mass may distract predators. Third-stage caterpillars make a shelter from a rolled leaf tip in which to spend the winter. The Viceroy is a Mullerian mimic of the Monarch, and it is also distasteful.
Host Plants: large trees: cottonwoods, willows, poplars, black cherry; shrub: willows.
Identification: Wingspan 2 1/2 - 3 3/8 inches. Upperside is orange and black, resembling the Monarch, except the Viceroy has a black line across the hindwing and a single row of white dots in the black marginal band. Where Monarchs are rare in Florida, Georgia, and the Southwest, Viceroys are brown instead of orange and mimic the Queen.
Habitat: Moist open or shrubby areas such as lake and swamp edges, willow thickets, valley bottoms, wet meadows, and roadsides.
Garden Habit: During most of the day, males perch on vegetation or patrol around the host plants to find females. Females lay eggs at the tip of host plant leaves, depositing only two or three eggs on a plant before moving to another. Caterpillars eat their eggshells after they hatch, then at night feed on catkins and leaves. Young caterpillars make a ball of leaf bits, dung, and silk which hangs off the leaf on which they are feeding; the dangling mass may distract predators. Third-stage caterpillars make a shelter from a rolled leaf tip in which to spend the winter. The Viceroy is a Mullerian mimic of the Monarch, and it is also distasteful.
Host Plants: large trees: cottonwoods, willows, poplars, black cherry; shrub: willows.