The fine butterfly next in order is regarded as a member of the Danainæ by most authors. Although its generic position seems to be established, its proper place in the classification of butterflies is still unfixed; and even the question of its trivial or specific name is not finally settled. According to Kirby, this butterfly is Anosia menippe, Hübner, and not the true Papilio plexippus of Linnæus, nor the P. archippus of Cramer. American authors, however, consider it to be the Linnean plexippus, and give menippe Hb. as a synonym. The species is here retained in Danainæ, but Holland places it in Euploeinæ and Skinner in the Family Lymnadidæ.
The Milkweed Butterfly (Anosia plexippus).
The butterfly figured on Plate [120] is brownish-orange, with black veins and margins on all the wings. White spots are arranged in double rows on the black outer margin of each wing, and there are seven other rather larger white spots on the black apical patch of the fore wings. The male has a patch of black scales, covering the scent pouch, close to vein 2 on the hind wings.
The egg is long, oval in shape, with over twenty low upright ridges and many cross-lines; is of a pale green colour; and is laid singly on the food-plant of the caterpillar (various kinds of milkweed, especially the commonest kind, Asclepias cornuti), and usually upon the under surface of the upturned apical leaves near the middle. The egg state lasts only about four days (Scudder). The caterpillar has the head smooth and rounded, yellow, conspicuously banded with black. Body cylindrical, tapering a little in front, naked, but with two pairs of long and very slender black thread-like filaments, one pair, the longer, on the second thoracic, the other on the eighth abdominal segment. The body is white, with numerous slender black and yellow, and especially black, transverse stripes, repeated with considerable regularity on each of the segments, so that there are nowhere any broad patches of colour (Scudder).
Larger Image
Pl. 68.
Heath Fritillary.
1, 2, 3 male; 4, 5, 6 female.