of the Danai candidi have been derived from the daughters of Danaus, those of the Danai festivi from the sons of Aegyptus."). Robert Michael Pyle suggested Danaus is a masculinized version of Danaë (Greek ), Danaus's great-great-granddaughter, to whom Zeus came as a shower of gold, which seemed to him a more appropriate source for the name of this butterfly. Taxonomy Monarchs belong in the subfamily Danainae of the family Nymphalidae. Danainae was formerly considered a separately family Danaidae. The three species of monarch butterflies are: D. plexippus, described by Linnaeus in 1758, is the species known most commonly as the monarch butterfly of North America. Its range actually extends worldwide, including Hawaii, Australia, New Zealand, Spain, and the Pacific Islands. D. erippus, the southern monarch, was described by Pieter Cramer in 1775. This species is found in tropical and subtropical latitudes of South America, mainly in Brazil, Uruguay, Paraguay, Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, and southern Peru. The South American monarch and the North American monarch may have been one species at one time. Some researchers believe the southern monarch separated from the monarch's population some 2 million years ago, at the end of the Pliocene. Sea levels were higher, and the entire Amazonas lowland was a vast expanse of brackish swamp that offered limited butterfly habitat. D. cleophile, the Jamaican monarch, described by Jean-Baptiste Godart in 1819, ranges from Jamaica to Hispaniola. Six subspecies and two color morphs of D. plexippus have been identified: D. p. plexippus – nominate subspecies, described by Linnaeus in 1758, is the migratory subspecies known from most of North America. D. p. p. "form nivosus", the white monarch commonly found on Oahu, Hawaii, and rarely in other locations. D. p. p. (as yet unnamed) – a color morph lacking some wing vein markings. D. p. nigrippus (Richard Haensch, 1909) – South America - as forma: Danais archippus f. nigrippus. Hay-Roe et al. in 2007 identified this taxon as a subspecies D. p. megalippe (Jacob Hübner, [1826]) – nonmigratory subspecies, and is found from Florida and Georgia southwards, throughout the Caribbean and Central America to the Amazon River. D. p. leucogyne (Arthur G. Butler, 1884) − St. Thomas D. p. portoricensis Austin Hobart Clark, 1941 − Puerto Rico D. p. tobagi Austin Hobart Clark, 1941 − Tobago The population level of the white morph in Oahu is nearing 10%. On other Hawaiian islands, the white morph