CREATURE FEATURE: A New Beginning
Welcome to the new year! In a unique twist for this edition of the Creature Feature, and for the others that will be published throughout 2025, the creatures highlighted throughout the year will pose as representatives that will correlate to the month that they are being announced.
To elaborate, have you ever wondered where or how we got the names for the twelve months of the year? All if not most of the names are Roman in origin, and naming began roughly before the start of the common era, which was over two thousand years ago. Let us take the month of January, for example. January is named after the Roman god Janus. This deity represented things such as beginnings, endings, entrances, and change. A fitting name for the first month of the calendar year. That being said, what creature could more represent the qualities that defined January than that of butterflies! Today for this month’s Creature Feature we will highlight some notable examples of butterflies found throughout our state.
Monarchs
Monarch Butterfly
Of the 17,500 species of butterfly found throughout the world, approximately 160 of them can be identified in our state. What is perhaps the most recognizable of these species is the monarch butterfly (Danaus plexippus). The name “monarch” is most likely a reference to a late 17th century English king, William III, who also had the title “William of Orange”.
One remarkable feat of this butterfly is its migration south to Florida and Mexico, a process that takes roughly four generations to achieve. As they are travelling thousands of miles in any given migration, their descendants pick up where they left off. During most life cycle stages, milkweed plants are an essential host in which monarchs use to lay eggs as adults, feast on as caterpillars, and to use during metamorphosis into a butterfly.
One can tell if a monarch is a male or a female by checking to see if there is a small black spot on each hindwing. These dark spots are a feature for males, and the scales within them contain pheromones that assist during mating and courtship.
Viceroys
Viceroy butterfly
Often confused with monarch butterflies, viceroy butterflies (Limenitis archippus) are identified by the dark, thin, horizontal line that runs through their hindwings. As caterpillars, they do not rely on milkweed plants, but rather trees of the Salicaceae family, which includes willow, poplar, and cottonwood trees.
For years, it was assumed that viceroys acted as a mimic of the monarch to prevent predators from consuming them, as predators find monarch butterflies to be unappealing. However, recent studies suggest that it is not necessarily the viceroy mimicking the monarch, but rather both butterflies co-mimicking each other. Birds seem to find both species unappetizing, despite monarch reliance on the poisonous milkweed.
Swallowtails
Spicebush swallowtail butterfly
There are several species of swallowtail, which are described as having elongated tips at the back of their hindwings. Our example for this feature is the spicebush swallowtail (Papilio troilus). This swallowtail is unique in that it will continue to flutter its wings as it is feeding on nectar. As the name implies, they will typically lay their eggs on either spicebush plants, or sassafras trees. How does a spicebush butterfly find out if the plant or leaf they wish to lay eggs on is acceptable? Their forelegs have a type of sensor known as a chemoreceptor, which helps determine the chemical makeup of a leaf when the legs tap on the leaf.
As with the others, spicebush swallowtails use mimicry tactics to avoid predation. For example, in the later stage as a larva, they appear to have two large dark spots near the front of their head. The placement of these spots may make a predator think that it is the head of a larger animal, such as a green snake, than the significantly smaller caterpillar.