for a new genus, Danaus. However, many works published between at least 1883 and 1964 identified the species as Anosia plexippus or Anosia archippus.

In 1874, entomologist Samuel Hubbard Scudder suggested naming the butterfly "The Monarch". He cited its large size and the notion that it "rules a vast domain" as the basis for the name, which he preferred to William D'Urban's "Storm Fritillary" and Philip Henry Gosse's