Monarch butterfly - Danaus plexippus

Another in what might be called the "Minnesota State Symbol" series of sketches. The Monarch Butterfly.

The orange and black monarch can be found throughout Minnesota. The monarch is the "Minnesota State Insect" (not the mosquito, as many t-shirts and bumper stickers would lead you to believe).

There are a couple amazing things about monarchs. First of all, they are left alone by predators because they are poisonous. In the catepillar stage, the monarch eats only poisonous milkweed. This makes its tissues poisonous for predators as well. The monarch is so effective at detering predators that it has an immitator, the Viceroy Butterfly, which has nearly identical markings and coloring. The Viceroy itself is not poisonous, but nobody messes with it either.

Another amazing fact about the monarch is its incredibly long migration. Monarchs that you see fluttering around in Minnesota will spend winters in the same wintering grounds just west of Mexico City. Tens of millions of monarch butterflies make this trip every year. The individual butterflies, however, do not make the trip back. The monarch is a "generational" migratory insect. The butterflies that fly to Mexico will breed and die in the spring. The NEXT generation of butterflies that are born around Texas and other southern states will be the ones that actually make it back to Minnesota the following year.