Viceroy | nichepoetryandprose

poetry and prose about place

Posts Tagged ‘Viceroy’

butterfly spaces

Can you tell the difference between a Viceroy butterfly and a Monarch butterfly?

I am a biologist and very interested in plant taxonomy. You would think I would have some interest in identifying insects. However, I have allowed the insect world to occupy a bucket of incomprehensible goo in my mind.

However, I have emerged from ambivalence. Last week, my husband and I visited a little-used railway siding as part of my plan to begin a series of poems on abandonment and repurposing. The first view we encountered was of a lovely orange butterfly perched on the metal rail of the track.

Viceroy butterfly on the rail of a little-used track

I took a photo and looked at the butterfly for a while, as it sat flexing its wings. I was thinking ‘Monarch’ , not really knowing the name of this colorful creature.

Once at home, I dug out my Peterson’s Field Guide: ‘A Field Guide to the Insects’ and took a look at the Monarch in Plate 9. Below it was a very similar-looking butterfly called a Viceroy.

“Hopeless”, I thought. But then I had a look at the text, and understood for the first time about the regularity of wing venation in butterflies. Monarchs and Viceroys are both orange, but the vein patterns on their wings are quite different! The entomologists among you will be laughing or closing the page in unbelieving disgust.

Monarchs belong to the Family of Milkweed Butterflies, and Viceroys to the family of Brush-footed Butterflies. The Viceroys are smaller than the Monarchs, and the tips of the forward wings show distinct differences, discernable even to an amateur like me.

Although I did not get the color right, drawing the Viceroy has made me pay additional attention to the complexity of the wing venation.