Wow, that's interesting!
Any such thing as a monarch/queen hybrid?

Sherry

That thought has crossed my mind too, Sherry. I'll be watching this one closely to see him as an adult. My guess is it's just a monarch anomaly but who knows?

How interesting, did it have this amonaly for all the instars then? Real curious if it evolves into a normal Monarch.

That's a good question, I did not notice it till now, but with the number of cats around I have not been looking closely at them all.

I'll bet it's a mutant Monarch! It doesn't really remind me of a Queeen and has more pairs of filaments than the Queens. How bizarre!

Right, forgot to point out that he even has more than he would if he were a queen! And you can't really tell from the pic but the one in the 3rd set (the one closest to the camera) is just a nub. So he has like 3.5 sets of antennae. Fun.

BTW, this one never came out of the pupa, which looked normal right up to the end, when it turned darker, then just turned black. sigh.

I heard about these guys through Monarch Watch back in the day. I don't think they operate anymore but their website still works which allows us to still see their article on 8 antennae monarchs.

KC

Here is a link that might be useful: Freak Monarch Caterpillars

Major Bummer!

I was looking forward to some kind of jet propelled Monarch with machine guns or something!

Mark

Maybe cats with anomalies can't survive. I had a silvery white gulf frit cat on year with a blue head! It was quite the beauty, but the chrysalis also turned sooty black, no butterfly ever emerged. :(
Sherry

@Mark - mee too!!
@KC - thanks that is an interesting page!
@Sherry - I remember the white GFs, but now that I think of it never heard the outcome. Makes you wonder if the "bad" chrysalis was because of the dna mixup or just coincidence.

Thanks all! We'll keep watching for the next interesting thing!

Burris and Richards linked this on their Facebook page today. If I saw a monarch chrysalis like this, I'd figure it was a goner.

Here is a link that might be useful: OPY monarch chrysalises