''Danaus eresimus'', the soldier or tropical queen, is a North American, Caribbean, and

South America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere at the northern tip of the continent. It can also be described as the sout ...

butterfly Butterflies are insects in the macrolepidopteran clade Rhopalocera from the order Lepidoptera, which also includes moths. Adult butterflies have large, often brightly coloured wings, and conspicuous, fluttering flight. The group comprise ...

in the family

Nymphalidae The Nymphalidae are the largest family of butterflies, with more than 6,000 species distributed throughout most of the world. Belonging to the superfamily Papilionoidea, they are usually medium-sized to large butterflies. Most species have a red ...

. Their flight is slow and they are reasonably easy to approach, but will fly for some distance if approached too closely.Rick Cech and Guy Tudor (2005). ''Butterflies of the East Coast''. Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ. File:Danaus eresimus eresimus MHNT dos.jpg, Dorsal view - MHNT File:Danaus eresimus eresimus MHNT ventre.jpg, Ventral view, same specimen

Description

The upperside of the wings is dark reddish brown with the forewing sometimes having white submarginal spots.Butterflies and Moths
Additional Soldier Images The veins are lightly marked with black. Males have a black scent patch on each of the hindwings. The underside of the wings is also dark brown with a postmedian band made up of squarish spots. The soldier has a wingspan of to inches (64–76 mm).Bob Stewart, Priscilla Brodkin and Hank Brodkin (2001). ''Butterflies of Arizona''. West Coast Lady Press. ''D. e. flexaure'', formerly ''D. flexaure'', is a subspecies which has more white markings on the hindwing underside.

Similar species

Similar species in the soldier's range include the monarch (''

Danaus plexippus The monarch butterfly or simply monarch (''Danaus plexippus'') is a milkweed butterfly (subfamily Danainae) in the family Nymphalidae. Other common names, depending on region, include milkweed, common tiger, wanderer, and black-veined brown. I ...

'') and the queen (''

Danaus gilippus The queen butterfly (''Danaus gilippus'') is a North and South American butterfly in the family Nymphalidae with a wingspan of . It is orange or brown with black wing borders and small white forewing spots on its dorsal wing surface, and reddish ...

''). The monarch is more orange, has heavier black-lined veins, and the underside of the wings is a pale yellowish color.Jim P. Brock and Kenn Kaufman (2003). ''Butterflies of North America''. Houghton Mifflin, New York, NY. The queen has nearly no black-marked veins, and has white forewing submarginal spots on both surfaces of the wings.

Habitat

The soldier may be found in a variety of open, subtropical habitats such as citrus groves, weedy water edges where host plants occur, dry fields, etc.

Flight

This butterfly may be encountered from February to December in southern

Florida Florida is a state located in the Southeastern region of the United States. Florida is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the northwest by Alabama, to the north by Georgia, to the east by the Bahamas and Atlantic Ocean, and to ...

(it is most common in October to December), and from August to January in southern

Texas Texas (, ; Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2020, it is the second-largest U.S. state by ...

.James A. Scott (1986). ''The Butterflies of North America''. Stanford University Press, Stanford, CA.

Life cycle

Males patrol for females. The

egg An egg is an organic vessel grown by an animal to carry a possibly fertilized egg cell (a zygote) and to incubate from it an embryo within the egg until the embryo has become an animal fetus that can survive on its own, at which point the a ...

s are bright orange. The black

larva A larva (; plural larvae ) is a distinct juvenile form many animals undergo before metamorphosis into adults. Animals with indirect development such as insects, amphibians, or cnidarians typically have a larval phase of their life cycle. ...

is banded with white and yellow stripes. It has a subdorsal row of yellowish-tan spots. There are six black, fleshy filaments, the first pair near the head, the second on the thorax, and the third at the end of the abdomen. The chrysalis is very similar to that of the monarch, often indistinguishable. It has three or more

brood Brood may refer to: Nature * Brood, a collective term for offspring * Brooding, the incubation of bird eggs by their parents * Bee brood, the young of a beehive * Individual broods of North American Periodical Cicadas: ** Brood X, the largest b ...

s per year.

Host plants

* Strangler vine, ''

Morrenia odorata ''Morrenia odorata'', the latexplant or strangler vine, is a plant in the family Apocynaceae, which is native to South America (Brazil, Bolivia, Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay). This plant is cited in Flora Brasiliensis by Carl Friedrich Philipp ...

'' * White vine, ''

Funastrum clausum ''Funastrum clausum'', commonly known as white twinevine, is a species of flowering plant in the dogbane family, Apocynaceae. It is native to southern Florida and Texas Texas (, ; Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South ...

'' * West Indian pinkroot, '' Spigelia anthelmia''

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q1314379 eresimus Butterflies of North America Butterflies of Central America Butterflies of the Caribbean Nymphalidae of South America Butterflies of Cuba Lepidoptera of Brazil Butterflies described in 1777 Least concern biota of North America