Danaus
Monarch butterfly and relatives
Andrew V. Z. BrowerThis tree diagram shows the relationships between several groups of organisms.
The root of the current tree connects the organisms featured in this tree to their containing group and the rest of the Tree of Life. The basal branching point in the tree represents the ancestor of the other groups in the tree. This ancestor diversified over time into several descendent subgroups, which are represented as internal nodes and terminal taxa to the right.
You can click on the root to travel down the Tree of Life all the way to the root of all Life, and you can click on the names of descendent subgroups to travel up the Tree of Life all the way to individual species.
For more information on ToL tree formatting, please see Interpreting the Tree or Classification. To learn more about phylogenetic trees, please visit our Phylogenetic Biology pages.
close boxDiscussion of Phylogenetic Relationships
The cladogram is based on morphological characters as published by Ackery and Vane-Wright (1984). There is some suggestion of polyphyly in D. chrysippus implied by molecular data - see Lushai et al. (2005a, b).
References
Ackery PR, and Vane-Wright RI. 1984. Milkweed butterflies. British Museum (Natural History), London.
Brower, L. P., Oberhauser, K., Boppre, M., Brower, A. V. Z. & Vane-Wright, R. I. 2007. Monarch sex: ancient rites, or recent wrongs? Antenna 31:12-18.
Lushai G, Allen JA, Goulson D, MacLean N, and Smith DAS. 2005. The butterfly Danaus chrysippus (L.) in East Africa comprises polyphyletic, sympatric lineages that are, despite behavioral isolation, driven to hybridization by female-biased sex ratios. Biol. J. Linn. Soc. 86: 117-131.
Lushai G, Zalucki MP, Smith DAS, Goulson D, and Daniels G. 2005. The lesser wanderer butterfly, Danaus petilia (Stoll 1790) stat. rev. (Lepidoptera: Danainae), reinstated as a species. Australian Journal of Entomology 44: 6-14.
About This Page
Middle Tennessee State University, Murfreesboro, Tennessee, USA
Correspondence regarding this page should be directed to Andrew V. Z. Brower at
Page copyright © 2006
- First online 04 October 2006
- Content changed 24 September 2007
Citing this page:
Brower, Andrew V. Z. 2007. Danaus http://tolweb.org/Danaus/70714/2007.09.24 in The Tree of Life Web Project, http://tolweb.org/
. Monarch butterfly and relatives. Version 24 September 2007 (under construction).