When I found my first Queen Butterfly in my yard, I knew it wasn't a Monarch, because it was more red. I also knew we had both Queen and Viceroy Butterflies in the area, and possibly Soldier Butterflies too. Which was it? This page is designed to help everyone figure out which is which.

How to tell these butterflies apart at a glance:

The Viceroy has triangle like white spots along the outer edge of the under-side of the wing, while the Queen, Soldier, and Monarch have more rounded white dots. Most of the cells on the under-side of the Queen's lower wing stop half way, forming a black arch-like line mid-way across the wing, while the other butterflies lower few wing cells span the length of the wing.

The Monarch is easy; it's orange.

The Soldier has pale white blotches across the under side of the lower wing.

I'm working on better photos of these butterflies, but here's what I have at the moment.

Telling the Viceroy and the Queen apart from the top is fairly easy; the Viceroy has black lines around the wing cells, but the Queen is more of a solid red-orange in the middle of the upper wings.

The butterflies don't always sit still and let you stare at them, so another clue to consider is their host plants; which grows near you? Have you found a caterpillar?

Viceroy Butterflies lay eggs on Willow.

Monarch and Queen Butterflies lay eggs on Milkweed. The Soldier uses Milkweed too, but it does not seem to like the red-orange Asclepias curassavica milkweed that most of the stores around here carry.

I haven't found any place that sells our native Milkweeds that the Soldier will use, but I have seen a Soldier Butterfly near White Vine Milkweed (not a native, but easily found along canals). I'm still looking for the caterpillar.

Here are links to my main page on each of these butterflies:

Viceroy Butterflies

Queen Butterflies

Monarch Butterflies

Soldier Butterflies

Speaking of caterpillars, here are the Monarch (left) and Queen (above) caterpillars.

The Monarch caterpillar has two sets of threadlike tubercles {Thanks Meg P. for letting me know that those appendages are called tubercles!}, and the Queen has three sets.

The Queen Caterpillar also has a red form that you can look at on my Queen Butterfly Page.