365 Urban Species. #199: Monarch

[urbpan]

Photo by urbpan. Location: Olmsted Park, Boston.

Urban species #199: Monarch Danaus plexippus

Of the dozen or so species of migratory butterflies in North America, the monarch is certainly the most well-known and popular. Seven states claim it as the official State Insect, second only to the introduced European honeybee (12 states). It is an uncommonly beautiful insect, even by mainstream tastes. Its bright orange and black colors reminded the colonists of royalty, though they exist to remind birds that they taste bad. Several species of butterfly have bold colors to warn predators away, and some more palatable butterflies have the same bold colors in imitation of the bad tasting ones. Toxic compounds acquired from their exclusive diet of milkweed, as larvae, give both monarch caterpillars and adults their protective taste. There are many species of milkweeds available to them, including many weedy urban species, and many planted by gardeners who wish to attract butterflies. There exists at least one milkweed, black swallow-wort, that monarchs will lay eggs on, but that the caterpillars are unable to feed on. Fortunately, the adult lays a single egg on each individual plant so there are many chances for the correct plant to be chosen. Currently, the greatest threat to monarchs is the loss of trees in their wintering grounds in California, the American south, and Mexico.


Location: Drumlin Farm.

Comments

[badnoodles.livejournal.com]

I like the caterpillars more than the adults - the little osmeterium is so cute!

[trywhy.livejournal.com]

i hate hate hate caterpillars.

When i was seven i planted bell peppers and tended to them by hand as a mother would her children.

i had to go on a week long trip, and left them to my grandmother.

When i got back i found them practically leafless.
At first i didn’t see the daemons, but upon closer inspection i found some green blobs what in retrospect i can say with some degree of certainty was a tomato hornworm.

In my seven year old rage, I carefully wrapped then in tin foil and left them in the sun.

[artemii.livejournal.com]

from what i understand, many of the milkweeds up here are less toxic than the ones further south. as a result sometimes birds up here will (successfully) eat a monarch (adult or caterpillar) and thus become convinced that they are all edible.

if viceroys were more common up here, it would be interesting to see whether they mimicked monarchs here, as well. (the black female form of the eastern yellow tiger swallowtail is less common in places that don't have its poisonous relative, the pipevine swallowtail.)

[perspicuity.livejournal.com]

ok, i'm both impressed and relieved/pleased that you found one of these... when i was a kid in this area, monarchs were EVERYWHERE, as were the splendied yellow/white/black young, and ... of course, tons of milkweeds.

these years, and at least the last 10, i've seen plenty of milkweed - in fact, have been "eyeballing" it for harvesting for fiber soon, but not a single caterpillar. anywhere. waaah. they're so cute :)

i used to go out of my way to raise tomato larvae and swallow tail too. so nifty. haven't seen much of those either.

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[sp0rk0.livejournal.com]

Surfed over after seeing an exclamation about your journal over in mandy_moon's recent discussion of pink juice v. blue juice.

Couldn't help but friend up, this is very exciting stuff!

[punkydolly.livejournal.com]

Holy crap I learned a lot today just by reading through these comments. Particularly beautiful monarch pic too, cottonmanifesto

:)

[rwblackbird.livejournal.com]