Monarch Mutants: X-butterflies have arrived!


In the last decade of breeding and growing monarch butterflies, I have seen my share of oddities. Out of approximately 600,000 monarchs grown during this time, I have witnessed the occasional mutant monarch and simply set it to the side with marginal interest. However, this time was different. This monarch aberration caught my eye as something of a rare natural beauty. A gem found in the mud. It may not have a dollar value, but in my eyes, the uniqueness of it's markings are priceless. How does something like this happen? Where does it come from? Will I ever see it again?

aberrant monarch butterfly

In early May of 2006, I noticed a few strange looking butterflies emerging from my stock. We are at our peak production during this time of year, so we had about 3000 butterflies emerging each week. For a two week period I noticed this strange, yet beautiful, monarch appearing within my stock. There were about 30 in total. I decided to save a couple males and females and breed them just to see what happened.

aberrant monarch butterfly

Much to my joy, the offspring of these mutants were identical to their parents. This meant that I could continue the line and have as many of these beautiful aberrant monarchs as I desired. One glitch - where would I find the time to do all this additional work? Ughh .. why did these have to emerge during the busiest time of year!

aberrant monarch butterfly