Are there different types of Monarch Butterflies?
The monarch butterfly (Danaus plexippus) is a species of butterfly in the family Nymphalidae. They can actually be found outside of North America. Hawaii has a population, so does New Zealand. They sometimes show up in Britain. Now this is where it gets tricky – yes, all of the populations are considered the same species but that doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re not different. For example, North American populations migrate where as Hawaiian and New Zealand populations do not. Also – the overall genetic composition of the populations are going to be different if they’re isolated. You’re going to find unique allele frequencies for different genes across the major isolated populations (North America, Hawaii and New Zealand). In fact, the Hawaiin morph of the monarch is quite distinctive since it is white instead of orange. Basically, narrow your paper down to a particular population you’d like to do a project one. The emergence of a white morph in Hawaii might actually be something
