Eating and Residence

• The viceroy caterpillar eats the leaves of poplar and willow trees. The butterfly lives in marshes, meadows, swamps and other damp areas where there are poplar, aspen and willow trees. All butterflies are referred to as Lepidoptera, which means scaled wings. Butterflies are arthropods and insects. Viceroy butterflies are generally active in the day, which means they are diurnal, although some prefer traveling during the early morning and dusk, instead of flying during the hottest part of the day. When a viceroy butterfly is at rest, his wings are held over his head in a vertical position. If he decides to bask in the sun, his wings are outstretched to the side.
  
  

Mating, Migration and Style of Flying

• Viceroy butterflies mate in the afternoon. The female lays her eggs on the tips of poplar and willow tree leaves. Each season, there are generally two or three generations of viceroys born. The viceroy butterfly does not migrate, according to ButterflyWebsite.com. They spend the winter rolled up in a willow or poplar tree leaf. When viceroys fly, they flap their wings a lot, whereas monarchs tend to glide.
  
  

Mimicry

• Up until the 1990s, it was believed that the viceroy and monarch butterflies exhibited Batesian mimicry, which is when a harmless species mimics a toxic species. To protect itself, for example, a defenseless moth mimics a yellow jacket wasp, which is capable of stinging. It is now known that viceroy and monarch butterflies actually exhibit Mullerian mimicry, which means that two equally toxic species mimic one another. To evade predators, one insect species mimics another that the predator already knows to avoid.
  
  

The Fake Out

• When a monarch butterfly is eaten by a predator, the predator is doomed because the monarch is toxic. The toxins that come from the monarch's diet of milkweed produce a poisonous toxin. Many creatures that have a poisonous nature let this be known by their bright colors. The viceroy evolved so that it looks like the poisonous monarch; the monarch's predators are fooled and avoid it as well. The biggest predators monarchs face are birds.