Queen and Monarch Butterflies

Queen and Monarch Butterflies

 

Today I saw a Queen and Monarch butterflies flying around in my backyard, feeding on some dandelions.  I took some pictures from my window.  They were absolutely beautiful!

 

Monarch butterfly feeding on dandelion flower.




Queen butterfly feeding on dandelion flower.



 The Queen butterfly stuck around a little bit longer, so I got another nice picture of it:



Queen butterfly feeding on dandelion flower.

They looked so similar at first when I was taking pictures of them from my window.  However, you can see the difference in the pictures above.  The Monarch butterfly has darker, thicker, black veins on the inside and outside of its wings.  The Queen butterfly has thinner black veins only on the outside of its wings.  The Queen also has smaller white dots on the inside and outside of it's wings.  Another difference to note is that it the Queen butterfly has more of a brown color, and the Monarch butterfly has more of an orange color to the wings.

Eastern Tiger Swallowtail Butterfly

Eastern Tiger Swallowtail Butterfly

Today I saw a beautiful Eastern Tiger Swallowtail butterfly flying around in my backyard.  It fed on the zenas in my backyard.

Eastern Tiger Swallowtail Butterfly

Eastern Tiger Swallowtail Butterfly

I love the black stripes on these butterflies.  It is amazing to watch them fly.  Eastern Tiger Swallowtail buterflies also have black stripes on their bodies like in the picture above.

Eastern Tiger Swallowtail Butterfly


They have such beautiful colors!

Gulf Fritillary Butterfly

Gulf Fritillary Butterfly



Gulf Fritillary butterfly feeding on zena

The Gulf Fritillary Butterfly is around Texas at this time of year. 

It's host plant is passionflower.  The caterpillars look like a orange-red-brown color with black thorns around the body. 

They are really not thorns!  They are actually pretty soft.  These black thorn looking things get larger as the caterpillar gets larger.

The Butterfly is very beautiful with white spots and a mixture of brown and reddish color around them.  I love watching these butterflies spread their wings because there is a totally different color on the inside from the outside!  A nice brown texture with black lining within.

Take a look!!

 

Gulf Fritillary butterfly feeding on lantana

 

Oh, yeah.  I forgott the 3 tiny little white dots on the upper part of the wing... How could I forgett that.  (Joking)

Gulf Fritillary

Gulf Fritillary Caterpillar

I have some passionflower in my backyard.  Recently, I spotted a gulf fritillary caterpillar feeding on it.



Gulf Fritillary caterpillar on host plant

I have yet to see the butterfly, but I am waiting!  ....

Today's Butterfly

Today's Butterfly

The butterfly I spotted in my backyard today was a Pipevine Swallowtail butterfly.  These two below were on my ash tree.



Pipevine Swallowtail Butterflies

Later I found the caterpillars feeding on some pipevine in my backyard.  I have a picture of them below.



Pipevine Swallowtail caterpillar



Pipevine Swallowtail caterpillars