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Plate 4

The butterfly

A male, wings spread. Beside him, a monarch at rest on milkweed, a close-up of its head, and a close-up of the wing.

Watercolor of a male monarch butterfly with wings spread. Beside it, a monarch perched on a milkweed leaf standing on four legs, a circular close-up of its head with the coiled tongue and tiny tucked front legs, and a circular close-up of overlapping wing scales.
  1. Compound eyesEach big eye is made of thousands of tiny eyes working together. They can also see polarized light, a pattern in the sky that our eyes can't detect.
  2. Clubbed antennaeThe knobbed feelers smell flowers and the world around them. They also hold tiny clocks that help migrating monarchs steer by the sun.
  3. Curly tongueThe tongue is a long drinking straw, rolled up like a party blower. It uncurls to sip nectar.
  4. PalpsTwo furry pads beside the face cover the rolled-up tongue and help sense the world.
  5. ThoraxThe middle part is the engine room, packed with muscles that work the wings and legs.
  6. Four wingsA butterfly has four wings, not two. The front pair is bigger and pointier; the back pair is rounder.
  7. Wing overlapThe front wing rests on a flap of the back wing. No hooks: they overlap and flap together as one.
  8. Tiny front legsMonarchs have six legs, but the front two are tiny and tucked up, so they look like they have four.
  9. Tasting feetA mother drums a leaf with her tiny front feet, which carry taste hairs, to check it's milkweed before she lays.
  10. ScalesThe colors come from tiny scales laid like roof shingles. "Lepidoptera" means "scale wings".
  11. VeinsThe black lines are veins, tubes that stiffen the wing. A new butterfly pumps fluid through them to open its wings.
  12. Male scent spotBoys have a black spot on each back wing, right on a vein. It's made of special scent scales.
  13. AbdomenThe long back section holds the stomach, and in mothers, the eggs.
  14. ClaspersBoys have two little claspers at the tip of the tail, for holding on when they pair up.
  15. Orange-and-black warningBright orange and black say "Don't eat me!" Monarchs keep milkweed poison in their bodies, so a bird that tries one gets a nasty taste. A few birds eat them anyway.

Sources: Monarch Joint Venture; Monarch Watch, Sexing Monarchs; Merlin, Gegear & Reppert, Science (2009) and Guerra et al., Nat. Commun. (2012) on the antenna clock. Not pictured: a new butterfly's tongue comes out in two halves, which it zips together soon after emerging.

Don’t rely on a drawing alone to identify a living thing or to decide whether it is safe to touch.

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