Last Monarch?

From our walk today was possibly one of the last monarch butterflies of the season; a migrator!

  

Pause For Celebration

One week has passed without a daily thunderstorm accompanied by flooding and straight-line winds.  Nevertheless, it is soggy as all get-out around here.  With standing water everywhere the trail maintenance continues to be deferred.

Celebrating with a cool, fifteen second, silent, video vignette from a trail camera.....

A Very Hungry Caterpillar

Monarch butterflies literally blow-in here every Memorial Day.  However, our casual observation as that they were far fewer in number.

Did they get blown off-course?

Were their numbers in their wintering roost reduced by weather or something else?

Several months later as the next generations have hatched, pupated and continued to reproduce we're seeing many more flying about.

Including this hungry caterpillar chowing-down on milkweed......

Update From the Butterfly Ranch

From this week we've observed plenty of butterflies flitting-about and visiting the sxplosion of wildflowers out back in the prairie planting.  Including.....

Tiger Swallowtail

Spangled Fritillary

Monarch 

Dispatch From The Butterfly Ranch

caterpillar is in center - click on image for a closer look

From our walk today were many things of nature. Significant was this.         

The monarch butterflies that blew in on the winds out of the southwest over Memorial Day weekend completed their courtship ritual. Later, eggs were laid on the emergent milkweed. This year’s first class of recruits has hatched and larvae are all over the joint.         

And a battle-scarred eastern tiger swallowtail sat still long enough for a photo. They’ve been back for several weeks too.          

The Butterfly Ranch is back in business.       

Screw the coronavirus.....

More Observations From the Natural World

In keeping with my retirement vow to pay attention to what is occurring in the natural world - from one of our walks there is this. 

New England aster is blooming-up a storm of color. 

Monarchs that emerge as adults after about the third week in August will migrate and not reproduce. If I had to hazard a guess the adults I've observed on a daily basis are a combination of migrants and the last of the locals to emerge as adults.   

One additional observation is that we’re about the break the rainfall record for September. I’ve never seen it so wet this time of year. If only the butterflies ate mosquitoes…..

Dispatch From the Butterfly Ranch

Today at 11:30 AM this adult butterfly emerged.

The last generation of the season has been emerging over the last week or so.

Monarchs that emerge as adults after about the third week of August will migrate and not reproduce.

Bon Voyage!

Dispatch From the Butterfly Ranch

Egg, larva, pupa, adult - the four basic life stages in an insect’s life cycle.  I’ve been visiting each of these stages this season on the Butterfly Ranch mostly as it relates to monarch butterflies.  Things are winding-down here at the ranch so there is a high probability this will be the last installment for 2019.  We'll see. 

It takes monarchs about a month to go through the stages from egg to adult and once it has attained adulthood the butterfly will live another two to six weeks and may actually participate in the migration south. 

Two weeks ago I had the unique opportunity to observe a monarch caterpillar pupate. 
I published and account of it here.  This is the fourth and final installment on the story – an adult emerges. 

The primary job of the adult stage is to reproduce the species.  When monarchs mate they remain together for as long as 16 hours with the females laying eggs almost immediately.   

click on the images for a closer look

Last Friday, August 30th, I checked on the pupa that was hanging from the siding adjacent to the front door.  It had previously begun darkening earlier in the week indicating that the emergence of an adult was nigh.  In the photo above you can see the wings of the butterfly encased in the pupa.  And then BOOM - this happened.  The adult emerged and was almost finished drying its wings when we found it.  

This butterfly is the final generation of monarchs - the adults that emerge in late summer and early fall.  As a consequence it has the job of migrating to overwintering grounds in Mexico.  There the adults spend the winter roosting in trees until conditions are favorable for their return to their breeding grounds.  These adults can live up to nine months.  Here is the monarch that emerged almost ready to take flight. 

The monarch that emerged in this picture happens to be a boy.  Field marks to look for to distinguish one sex from the other are on the wings.  The veins of a male’s wings are thinner and more delicate than those of the female.  Furthermore, males have a black spot on a vein on each hind wing that is not present on the female.  These spots are made of specialized scales which produce a pheromone used during courtship in many species of butterflies and moths. Remember to look for the 'balls' on the boy monarch. 

Bon Voyage little fella!

Dispatch From the Butterfly Ranch

Jill and I are in agreement that the 2019 butterfly recruitment was among the best of years in our memories.  Which would make for a lot of collective memory.

The dominant species was the monarch - and likely attributable to the abundance of milkweed host plant growing around here.  I suppose if more individual landowners and homeowners made an effort to favor pollinator habitat in lieu of sterile and manicured landscape we could provide these winged critters and all of their insect cousins a better start to life and survivability in general in an increasingly chemical dominated world.

At the time of this posting we still have monarch caterpillars that have yet to pupate.  We have chrysalis attached to the house, the porch furniture, garden plants, the shed and just about anywhere else you might care to look.  There are adult butterflies yet to emerge although the current generation flying-about should begin staging for the annual migration before too long.

Just like the orioles, tree swallows and redwing blackbirds have all left us for their southern homes - the monarchs will follow.  The eastern tiger swallowtail pupa overwinter as well as the first and second instar larvae of the viceroy.

As we prepare to say goodbye here are some photos to remember them by...

click on images for a closer look

Viceroy

Eastern Tiger Swallowtail

Eastern Tiger Swallowtail (black phase)

Monarch

Good Year For Monarchs

Someone told me last weekend that the monarch migration was close to starting.  That’s nonsense.  If you pay attention to the comings and goings of migrating butterflies the migration south typically begins in early to mid-September.  If the weather turns colder sooner around these parts the migration may advance in schedule.  In some locales that are warm year-round like Florida and California the monarch butter has evolved to living there year-round.  Besides, we still have caterpillars all over the place.  Just the other morning over coffee we counted eight of them within the breadth of one arm-span on the south side of the porch.  I figure these for the third generation of the original migrators.  There have got to be a bazillion of these out there.  It's been a banner year for the monarchs around here for sure.....

click on image to enlarge

Dispatch From the Butterfly Ranch

It isn't very often that you have an opportunity to witness something like this but this was a layup in my view.  The Law of Large Numbers and Averages so to speak.

We've witnessed large numbers of monarch butterflies this year - probably the best year in recent memory.  And as a consequence there are monarch caterpillars all over the place.  Seriously, we have had to be mindful of where we step on the porch, the walkways and the driveway.  Chrysalis are hanging from everything from a couple of cinderblocks at the entrance of the garage, bird spikes, porch furniture even the siding of the house.  That's right the siding.

Like this critter that decided to crawl along the underside edge of the siding adjacent to the front door.



 He stayed like this for most of a day and overnight followed by affixing himself to the edge of the siding and assuming this classic pose. 

Twenty-four hours passed and the caterpillar commenced to twitching and flinching.  I grabbed my phone and waited for the moment to arrive and recorded the transformation from larva to pupa.

Pretty cool inasmuch as the process occurs relatively quickly.

All the basic components for an adult butterfly are contained within that small green package. 

With some patience and a wee bit of luck we might be around to witness the monarch butterfly emerge.

Dispatch From The Butterfly Ranch

Egg, larva, pupa, adult - the four basic life stages in an insect’s life cycle.  I’ll be visiting these four stages this season on the Butterfly Ranch mostly as it relates to monarch butterflies but not necessarily restricted to them. 

 

It takes monarchs about a month to go through the stages from egg to adult and once it has attained adulthood the butterfly will live another two to six weeks and may actually participate in the migration south.  This post is about the third stage of development – the pupa.  And I’ve delayed posting something about this subject for lack of a pupa to photograph.   

 

Just before they pupate the caterpillar goes on the march to locate a suitable place to hang.  Like this guy walking on the siding of the house.  The choice of location varies - including porch furniture, the hose reel, picnic table, edging of the siding, and much more.  They'll even hang on my tomato plants. 

 

click on images for a closer look

 

The monarch larvae then spins a silk mat from which they hang upside down.  Shedding its skin for the last time the caterpillar inserts a stem into the silk pad to hang.  By the time the larva pupates - all the major changes to the adult form have already begun. Most moth caterpillars spin a silken cocoon to protect them as pupae. Butterflies do not do this so this is correctly called a chrysalis.  

  

In eight to fifteen days the chrysalis will darken as the black, orange, and white wing patterns become visible through the pupa covering.  This is a sign that the adult butterfly is about to emerge. 

 

Stay tuned for the fourth and final installment.

 

Along Came a Spider

Monarch butterflies are toxic to critters that eat them as a consequence of feeding-upon their host plant – milkweed. 

During the larval stage of growth as the monarch caterpillar feeds poisonous Cardiac Glycosides found in the milkweed foliage are stored.  This toxin is harmful to vertebrate predators – those predators that have a backbone or spinal column.  It is quite a remarkable defense mechanism.  However, these glycosides have no effect on invertebrate predators. 

Which would explain why a spider has disabled this monarch and is tying it-up with webbing in anticipation of dining-upon it. 

click on image for a closer look

 

There you have it – this is where the strong survive and the weak are killed and eaten.

Update From the Butterfly Ranch

Some caterpillar had the brilliant idea to crawl into the machine shed when we weren’t looking and hang out.
As a consequence I found this young lady stretching her wings on the concrete floor when was putting the 4-Wheeler and some tools away.   

 
She’ll do better in the sunny and overgrown kitchen garden. 

Largest number of monarchs we’ve observed in years.

Dispatch From the Butterfly Ranch

Egg, larva, pupa, adult - the four basic life stages in an insect’s life cycle.  I’ll be visiting these four stages this season on the Butterfly Ranch mostly as it relates to monarch butterflies but not necessarily restricted to them. The last time I visited this subject was June 12th when I first began finding monarch eggs laid on the milkweed host plant. 

Stage two refers to a butterfly or moth at the caterpillar or larva stage.  Both terms are correct – but most biologists use the term larva. This is the stage that a monarch butterfly does all of its growing.       

As the caterpillar feeds and grows in size it has to molt – or shed - its skin.  The shed skin is eaten before the caterpillar resumes dining-upon milkweed with the period of time between molts referred-to as instars.  With normal summer temperatures the entire larval stage of monarchs lasts from nine to fourteen days with the caterpillar growing through a total of five instars before they reach the third stage of life.     

This larva is in the fifth instar and I think it is beginning to look for a place to hang and commence stage three.  

click on image for a closer look

Dispatch From the Butterfly Ranch

Egg, larva, pupa, adult - the four basic life stages in an insect’s life cycle.  I learned all of this in the Fourth Grade.  I’ll be visiting these four stages this season on the Butterfly Ranch mostly as it relates to monarch butterflies but not necessarily restricted to them.  We've seen any number of different butterflies this spring but it is the monarch that dominates the count.

From yesterday's walk there is this.

Monarch females generally lay a single egg on a single milkweed plant (host plant for the monarch) usually on the underside of a leaf.  They glue it to the leaf and it will remain there until a tiny caterpillar (larva) emerges in three to five days.  We’ve been examining milkweed plants on our walks and finding a lot of eggs laid on the surface of the leaf.  To be fair it is easier to look for eggs there than on the underside but I’m just sayin’.   

In any event they're rather tiny eggs, white and usually smaller than a pinhead.  Look carefully and you will find them.  Females carry with them all the eggs they will lay and after 300 to 500 deposits they’re done! 

Stay tuned for the larva stage.
 

The Monarch Conundrum

In the Big City there has been the annual staging of the monarch butterfly migration.  The butterflies are on the move for parts south. It is pretty cool and since the city apartment Jill and I keep is immediately adjacent to a roost site a couple of times a year we get to observe the migration action up-close and personal.  If you haven't witnessed it before - it is quite cool. 

There is a very active monarch restoration network working hard in an urban environment to restore habitat and support the migration.  Photos, video and more information about the Friends of the Monarch Trail here. 

Anyone reading this blog also knows that, Jill and I maintain a reasonably large pollinator habitat here at The Platz.  It has been a terrific year for butterflies of all types including the monarchs.  Yet to my eyes there hasn’t been much sign of departures on a migration.   As a matter of fact the comings and goings of the monarch butterflies seemed pretty normal with numbers what we have become accustomed-to over the past few months. 

click on images for a closer look

 

The photos in this post were taken last Sunday and Monday and include at least three stages of monarch development.   

Since none of these insects seemed to be in a rush to beat it out of Dodge I was puzzled by this conundrum.  Was it a consequence of northern latitude? A milder clime on the peninsula?  What gives?  

Talking to some of the people in the Big City I was lead to believe that the monarchs were on their city roosts, departing for parts south and there wasn’t an explanation for anything I observed at latitude halfway between the equator and the pole. 

Pre-emergent - you can see the butterfly within
 
Thursday morning I was chatting with a guy setting-up a tripod and camera to photograph the city monarchs and he didn’t believe a word I was sharing with him.  All the monarchs were in Wauwatosa – wasn’t it obvious to me?  As far as he was concerned I might as well have lived at the North Pole.  I was either nuts or making stuff-up.   

Rescued from the composter and it pupated before my very eyes

 

So were the monarchs observed here on the peninsula too late to the migration dance? What was the backstory?   Curious, I fired-off an email on the subject to the Department of Etymology at UW Madison.  I received a reply yesterday afternoon and learned that the migration is both complicated and nowhere near over.   From the experts was this: 

Hi Tom,    

Thanks for your inquiry about monarch life history. This is a complicated time to sort out generations, life stages, and behaviors because so many things are overlapping. Monarchs that emerge as adults after about the third week in August will migrate, and not reproduce.

However, there are still reproductive monarchs around that emerged earlier, some from the local area and some from farther north. My guess is that you're seeing the immature stages (eggs, larvae and pupae) that are the offspring of the last reproductive monarchs of the season, and that the adults in your garden are a combination of migrants and these late reproducers.   

This weird overlap goes on for about a month; you should stop seeing the immature monarchs in a week or so, but will keep seeing migrants for a month or so (especially since it sounds like you have great habitat for them).  Thanks for all that you're doing to support monarchs and the other species that use their habitat. 

Just emerged and drying-out

 

So, there you have it.  There is overlap and it is complicated.  Raising a toast to science and a few more weeks of monarchs to be enjoyed...