Subject: Male Queen Butterfly?
Location: Coryell County, Texas
August 16, 2014 11:27 am
Hello, I hand-watered our very dry lawn this morning, and immediately some butterflies came to drink. Is this a male Queen butterfly?
You kindly identified one for me last September. That one had survived a drenching downpour.
I darkened the exposure a bit. Thank you!
Signature: Ellen
Hi again Ellen,
You have correctly identified the sex of this Milkweed Butterfly by the scent patch on the male’s hind wings. We wanted to confirm that this was in fact a Queen, so we checked BugGuide which indicates the difference between the Queen and the Soldier as being that the Soldier has: “Ventral, black veins on both FW and HW, Queen only has black veins on HW. Soldiers are the only one in the genus that has pale squarish spots forming a concentric postmedian band.” The ventral wing surface view does not have strong, black veins on the forewing, indicating this is a Queen.
