Gulf Frittilary (Agraulis vanillae)?

Here is a link that might be useful: Agraulis v.

Nope it's a Queen. They feed on milkweeds though like Monarchs

Yes, it's definitely a Queen. I get them on my milkweed some years. The cats look almost exactly like Monarchs except they have an extra set of "horns" near the middle of their bodies. Chrylasis look very much alike too. Easy to confuse them.

Interesting! It's a Danaus gilippus, then. According the information I found on the net, they do not migrate. I wonder if the caterpillars I have on my milkweeds are queens and not monarchs...

Here is a link that might be useful: Queen butterfly

My response did not go through. It is a Queen and I found her on milkweed. the photo was taken on fennel in flower.

They are suddenly everywhere. I assume the heat and the fact that I have loads of flowers made my garden the place to lay eggs and to stay as long as possible.

I do not remember seeing them before. Maybe a few but not like this.

I happened to come across this blog post about how to tell Queens and Monarchs apart.

Here is a link that might be useful: Queen, Monarch Caterpillars and Butterflies: How to tell the difference ...

Queens DO migrate, it's just much less distance involved. I usually see Queens, mainly traveling northward in Spring to late summer. Then periodically I see them in summer. In fall they are pretty much headed south. For some reason I didn't see their eggs or caterpillars on the milkweed this year. And mainly just saw male Queen butterflies. Not sure why that was. I did have the Monarch caterpillars in spring this year, but even though I saw the Monarchs in my garden this fall, no eggs or caterpillars were spotted. I must say that this year was unusual, because I even saw a few Monarchs in early December! I saw a Queen this morning, also unusual to see one this late. Lots of butterflies left, mainly snouts, American Ladies, sulfurs and skippers. And there's at least one Red Admiral and a few Common Mestras (a fairly tropical butterfly seldom seen here). Unfortunately, freezing weather is coming! Monday night it's forecast to get to 25 degrees here in my Hill Country area.