apparently all those textbook writers never actually ate a viceroy butterfly

[eub]

And the fact that they taste fine has been false for more than half the time I've known it.

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v350/n6318/abs/350497a0.html
Nature 350, 497 - 498 (11 April 1991); doi:10.1038/350497a0
The viceroy butterfly is not a batesian mimic
...
Our experiment refutes this interpretation by revealing that viceroys are as unpalatable as monarchs, and significantly more unpalatable than queens from representative Florida populations.

Comments

[randomdreams.livejournal.com]

I recently read a book about mimicry and various types of camouflage and that was their claim, as well: that both butterflies benefitted by being nasty-tasting and adopting a similar marking strategy. They had a lot of other, similar examples as well.

[eub.livejournal.com]

Yep, and it's interesting that they don't get (too much) cheating, even though presumably there's no way for them to police.

[blk]

And the fact that they taste fine has been false for more than half the time I've known it.

I hope you didn't test this yourself by trying to taste it.

[eub.livejournal.com]

Then I would have discovered their M\"ullerian mimicry! It would have been teh awseome.