White Pupa

[CLEMILA]

This week we discovered this monarch pupa near several other monarch pupae in our yard. We don't normally bring them into the house but we did bring this one in due to its unique nature. We thought that maybe we could get some help in identifying the cause of its white color instead of the beautiful green we normally experience.

[Mona Miller]

http://pk-photography.blogspot.com/2009 ... salis.html
Scroll down and look at the picture of the plain tiger pupae.

[Mona Miller]

It could be a possible escape from a butterfly exhibit. How close is the nearest butterfly exhibit?

[CLEMILA]

I believe the closest exhibit is in Miami, about 200 miles south or perhaps Calloway Gardens, Ga about 450 miles north. We are very excited about this find. Normally our gardens have sulphurs, queens, swallowtails (black and giant), zebras, monarchs, and a variety of sphinx moths so we have seen several pupae, but nothing like this. We will continue to watch and post as it develops.

[Jim]

Chip asked me to post this response...

The pupa appears to be a variant of the orange/pink/off white monarch pupae we had years ago. This mutation is recessive - as in albinism. The adults are normal in pigmentation and viable. They mate readily and produce normal numbers of offspring. The mutation evidently modified the color of the hemolymph and tissues beneath the pupal cuticle

We would really like to get this mutation back into culture. Unusual phenotypes such as this one are great for student projects and this one promises to help us understand the basis for the coloration of the normal pupa.

See the "Orange Monarch Pupae" article on pp 50-51 of the 1999 Monarch Watch Season Summary, available for download at http://www.monarchwatch.org/read/seasum.htm



Also see our "Wanted: Orange Monarch Pupae" article from the July 2006 Email Update.


photo by Jim Lovett

[CLEMILA]

Mystery solved. We are the proud surrogates of this beautiful butterfly born at 10:00 am this morning. The chrysallis started turning dark yesterday with the telltale signs of spotted wings. We watched it closely and then it happened. Looking at the milkweed bush where the pupa was found we have discovered two types of caterpillars thriving; one type that looks like a monarch and one type that has a third set of antenna that are red at the base. Thank you all for your replys and your interest.

[Mona Miller]

These are plain tigers. Don't release them back into the wild. They probably are a accidential release from a butterfly exhibit. I'd consider them an invasive species at this point.

[Mona Miller]

OOOOP. Not a plain tiger, but a queen. Okay to release. Sorry.