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Limenitis archippus
The viceroy (Limenitis archippus) is a North American butterfly that ranges through most of the contiguous United States as well as parts of Canada and Mexico. The westernmost portion of its range extends from the Northwest Territories along the eastern edges of the Cascade Range and Sierra Nevada mountains, southwards into central Mexico. Its easternmost range extends along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts of North America from Nova Scotia into Texas
Occurs in moist open or shrubby areas such as lakes, swamp edges, willow thickets, valley bottoms, wet meadows and agricultural and rural areas.
In all life stages the viceroy mimics something. The eggs resemble insect galls that affect the host plants. The caterpillars resemble bird droppings. They roll bits of leaf material to hang near them as a distraction. Older caterpillars look formidable with its tubercles. Even the overwintering caterpillar rolls up in a leaf tip to hide from predators. Because the adults resemble monarch butterflies, they are often bypassed for other prey.
Spotted on Jan 28, 2017
Submitted on Jan 28, 2017
2 Comments
Hi laned19198! Please only upload images taken yourself to Project Noah. Images taken from the internet are not allowed.
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Hello laned19198 and Welcome to the Project Noah community!
We hope you like the website as much as we do. There are many aspects to the site and community. The best way to get started is to read the FAQs at http://www.projectnoah.org/faq where you can find all the tips, advice and "rules" of Project Noah. You, like the rest of the community, will be able to suggest IDs for species that you know (but that have not been identified), and make useful or encouraging comments on other users' spottings (and they on yours).
There are also "missions" you can join and add spottings to. See http://www.projectnoah.org/missions . A mission you should join is the http://www.projectnoah.org/missions/2004... to chose the best wild photo of 2016,only the spottings added to that mission are eligible.Note that most missions are "local". Be sure not to add a spotting to a mission that was outside of mission boundaries or theme :) Each mission has a map you may consult showing its range. We also maintain a blog archive http://blog.projectnoah.org/ where we have posted previous articles from specialists from different geographical areas and categories of spottings, as well as wildlife "adventures".
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