The Sabino Canyon Volunteer Naturalists (SCVN) have been preparing a new kit for Elementary School Program, which will be on pollinators. I was asked to provide some photos of pollinators. One of the photos first appeared on this blog in a grunge art piece I did in September of 2015, which I mistakenly identified as a viceroy.
One of the Pollinators kit developers is SCVN member Fred Heath, whom we consider our butterfly expert. Fred let me know that I had misidentified the butterfly —
“The orange and black butterfly is a Queen and not a Viceroy.
As you probably know, the Viceroy is a mimic of the Monarch and Queen.
In the east where there are more Monarchs than Queens,
the Viceroy is a brighter orange. Out west and in the south where there are more
Queens than Monarchs the Viceroy is more of a burnt orange like the Queen.
The one quick way to distinguish between the Queen and the Viceroy,
that that the Viceroy has a black median band,
which goes across the hindwing and the Queen doesn’t have that band.
This mistake is made a lot. There was a billboard that advertised Mexico and the Monarchs,
but the butterfly in the billboard is a Viceroy.
When I google Viceroy, the first picture they show is a Monarch.”
Fred Heath Slide for One of His Butterfly Presentations
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