Is my Monarch a Boy or a Girl?
- Misty
- Sep 9, 2019
- 2 min read
There are three ways to easily distinguish male from female in the monarch butterfly.
The first and easiest is to look at their wings. An adult butterfly is easily distinguishable as male or female, simply by looking at the wing pattern.
Above Pictures show the black "smudge" found on Male Monarch butterfly wings
The females wings have dark bold lines.
The males wings, have markings on both the top and underside, of its hind wings. Visible from the top, you can see the scent glands on the males wings, which he uses to attract females. The scent glands look like black, oblong dots. The lines on the males wings are also thinner and not as bold as his female counterpart.
Above shows small notch found on the Female Monarch Butterfly's lower abdomen
The second easiest way to tell male from female (easy- if you can catch a butterfly) is to look at the very bottom of the abdomen on your butterfly. I would describe this as the butterfly butt.
On a female butterfly butt, you will see a little notch near the bottom.
On the male, you will see claspers, which he uses to attach himself to the female, during the mating process.
The third way we can tell if a monarch is male or female, is by looking at the chrysalis. About a day or two after the Chrysalis has formed (and it's safe to move) you can look at the very top, there will be two black dots. Imagine these are eyes. Under the two black dots you'll see a small dot or a small line.
If it is a boy, it will have a small for (to me it looks like a smiley face)
If it is a girl, it will have a line going down (to me it looks like a little cat face)
During the time that the Monarch is a caterpillar, there is no way visibly, from the outside, to tell whether it is male or female. This can only be observed by dissection, which I'm not willing to do. So, according to me, these are the 3 ways to tell if your Monarch is a boy or a girl. 😉
Thanks for tuning in to this weeks blog!
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