MONARCH BUTTERFLY:
HOW DOES THE FOURTH GENERATION KNOW IT MUST FLY TO MEXICO?
(A MYSTERY)
alan skeoch
August 2018
MONARCH BUTTERFLY REPORT
OUR HOPE FOR SURVIVAL RESTS WITH THE FOURTH GENERATION
Alan skeoch
August 20, 2018
The world is in trouble. We all know that. And the trouble is right before our eyes. No frogs, No snakes, No bobolinks, No leeches, No Killdeers. Let me change that. yes, I did find
a couple of Leopard frogs in our 7 acres of ponds this year (2018). No doubt there are more but decades ago there were hundreds, thousands maybe. And last year we had garter snakes
procreating in our green house. The big female had lots of suitors…seemed to be in every crate of flower pots. None so far this year. And the ponds had lots of leeches. None for past few years. Have not seen
a bobolink or a killdeer for decades. What to do ? What to do? Are we really in the midst of the sixth extinction of life on our planet? Will the polar regions melt and raise the oceans high enough
to drown our ocean cities. Will the climate change so radically that lives of little creatures will be lost forever? Is it true that 95% of the living creatures on earth are human beings and their domestic animals. The wild creatures have been reduced to 5%.
All of which takes me to this short photo essay on the Monarch Butterfly. When people suddenly got worried about the rapid disappearance of Monarch Butterfly due to the
use of herbicides like Round Up Marjorie and I decided let one of our gardens reassert its Milkweeds. Not difficult to do. Deep rooted. Came up every years in spite of plowing.
The idea was to provide female Monarch Butterfly
with a food supply for her eggs. She can lay a thousand in her lifetime. Not much luck yet. We did find one tiny monarch caterpillar munching milk weed but it died.
The good news is that we have several…maybe 4…monarchs flitting around the farm. Or maybe we are just seeing one Monarch in four different spots. It is here. Loaded
on a teasel to get some sugar and then slipped away ‘ on gossamer wings’ because she seemed to know we were watching. Got her picture anyway. Will she lay
a thousand eggs on these plants?
It is time for the fourth generation. Fourth generation? In one year? Yes, four generations of Monarch Butterfly live and die in one summer…not even a whole year.
The first three generations die between two and six weeks after they emerge from the ChrYsalis stage. But that fourth generation lives for 8 to 9 months. Enough time to get to
Mexico or California. How come? How come the fourth generation lives for 32 to 36 weeks when his or her parent only live for 2 to 6 weeks. And the really big questIon.
How does that fourth generation know it should head for Mexico?
Today is August 20, 2018. I assume the Monarch Butterfly we found today is a third generation Monarch. If it is a female it will be laying 1,000 eggs of fourth generation
Monarchs. Some, a few, of those eggs will successfully go through the larva and chrysalis stages and emerge ready for the trip.
Your task? In the next couple of weeks look for Monarch caterpillars on milk weed plants. Let’s hope there will be many. Do not disturb them. Maybe our little patch
of milk weed will delay the sixth extinction event. Maybe.
alan
CAN YOU SEE HER? SIPPING A SODA FROM A THORNY TEASEL. MAYBE WATCHING ME…OR HOPEFULLY WATCHING THE MILK WEED PLANTS IN THE FOREGROUND.
