When do Monarch cats go to the chrysallis stage and then when do they emerge in northern OH?
I planted extra milkweed this year and have seen some Monarchs around but haven't seen any cats, as I have in years past.
Monarch life cycle
I'm not sure if OH has a time of year that is busier than others but I do have a gardening friend that is there and said they are laying a lot of eggs for him right now so you might keep your eye out for either eggs or small cats.
mine usually take 10 to 14 days to emerge. If it gets cold they will overwinter untill the temps are acceptable
You've had a Monarch overwinter?? I've never had them do that but I have had them eclose in the middle of December! About 40 of them to be exact! I waited until a sunny day that was above freezing to let them out. Thus I have pics of them with Christmas yard decorations in the background.
KK great Monarch photo.I've noticed in this heat of the summer they have slowed down on the amount of fertile eggs hatching .I've also noticed that 95% of all my monarch cats that I've collected was done between 18th-20th and 26-28th of the month.I've found very few other times.Now every time I water I take time to look for eggs&cats.Now I'm curious if I'm nuts or it's a lunar cycle thing or a florida thing or maybe even a type of milkweed thing.It's been true march,april,may june and july and now aug.
Maybe the adult females that are laying on my milkweed are related to the previous ones I raised and are on the same cycle so it just a freak thing and wouldn't take place if I hadn't started interfering.I probably ought to learn how to tag the newborn so I can see how many actually stay around and how many go up to Beachwood Ohio or Vancleave MS. or Burleson TX
Don
Fascinating - if you figure it out - please post. I have a dumb question... there are several egg-like things on my milkweed. What does a monarch egg look like? How big?
it's a creamy white color laid singly on bottom side of milkweed leaf.about 1/3 the size of a grain of white rice.
Don
bookworm, if those "egg-like" things are yellow and on the top new growth they are aphids. They are naturally attracted to the milkweed so it's normal. You can squish them or hose them off carefully.
Don, tagging is very easy. We did it a few years ago because someone sent me some of their extra tags. The tags aren't cheap so I've not done it since.
And guess what! I had all but one of my Monarch chrysalis die! I've had just one or two get a black spot in them and never eclose but these were all fine then one by one they started looking black, then whitish and brownish. Nothing came out of them tho. I left them in the cage outside for over a week tho before removing them because I didn't know what to do. I'm afraid that there is some sort of virus inside my cage. ? The only one that did eclose was in the cage but pupated on a stick so I brought it inside before they all died. I've got to work on a new cage now because I'm leary of this one. I plan to start a thread about it but have been busy.
KK just bleach and rinse it good. Then maybe try 1 cat to see what happens.
No the cats hatched for me to Christmas day 14 of them. They were in the warm florida room on my plants. Trish had her BST over winter in Fl last year
KK, I've had several do the same thing.I had about 75 chrysalis and all seemed fine the just as you discribed happened.Out of my last 3 bunches maybe bout a dozen have done that.I do the clean job with bleach as Donna discribed and I can't think of what else to do.
Thanks! Any idea what % bleach solution? or straight? I need to do it because using an aquarium is not very easy.
Hi, everybody--
Very interesting comments about Monarch cats especially in the south. It sounds like Monarchs are all over the place down there.
Alyrics, I looked up Monarch habits in Ohio on our lepidopterist site and it's still not too clear to me when/if they lay eggs here and what their habits are while migrating north and then back south again.
http://www.ohiolepidopterists.org/bflymonitoring/species/monarch.htm
I guess I don't understand why they migrate north and how far they can get before the quit or die...does anyone have a good understanding? And also, does anyone know the lifespan of a Monarch?
I have seen a few monarchs in our garden in the past couple of weeks but it sounds like (from the article) it's a little early for cats here....
Can anyone clue me in? Thanks.
A good site for lots of info and emails is www.MonarchWatch.org I think Monarch's can live quite a long time, a lot longer than most, but I'm not sure how long. Tagging them helps them learn this too. If a new one is tagged, lives for a few months, flies to Mexico for the winter, then comes back and is ID'd, that's a pretty good stretch for a butterfly. Sorry I don't have numbers. That kind of info had to be dumped out so I could learn something new. lol
Did your plants survive?
KK just use 10% solution. That's all that is required. Just make sure you rinse it well and let it dry completely before putting in any cats
tabasco,monarch's were sited in Ohio since the beginning of May.Monarch's make it up into the southern parts of canada.They believe a Monarch will travel or attempt to travel anywhere there is milkweed.With enough nectar plants enroute for fuel.The reason no one really knows but the easy answer survival.A monarch can live 2 weeks to several months,many that migrate don't make the whole trip, some do.Most will stop and feed and find a patch of milkweed and lay eggs then take off again to continue the migration.That's what monarch's do is search for milkweed.The migration is not only timed for the weather but also for which nectar plants are going to be in full bloom for the large numbers of migrating butterflies to fuel up on.I read that some taqged monarchs left mexico and flew over the gulf to east texas and also florida.Now that's gotta be none stop,wow.
I'm in a over wintering spot here in Florida and will have to see what happens to my population this coming winter.I've got alot of milkweed so I'll be able to support quite a few.
Don
thanks, konkrete and don. I re-read the Monarch Watch site and they have some migration information but they even admit they don't know many answers to the questions about migration so I guess I'm not alone.
I suppose we should all volunteer to tag at one of their stations to gather more info. I am still curious why monarchs fly all the way up to Canada in the summer (some do and some don't). Very interesting little creatures, aren't they?
My plants are doing great, kk, including the Ageratum 'houstonium' you sent me! I wish I had planted more milkweed since I read that I should have about 50 plants in one space and I have just 10 or so, but I will do better next year. (First I have to cut down a few trees to get more sunshine in my yard.)
Our butterfly season is just getting into full swing, and of course, it's nothing like your multitude of varieties down south.
I did go to the Butterfly Show at Franklin Park in Columbus last week. Interesting display of butterflies from all over the globe. Of course I forgot my camera! http://www.fpconservatory.org/exhb_butterflies.htm
I did a little more research on the Monarch Butterfly Life Cycle and Migration patterns and came up with this novel explanation from the owner of the Newport (RI) Butterfly Zoo on Quohog.org.
I had never heard of the 'chip' imbedded in the monarch brains, but perhaps some of you have. What do you think?
A Quote:
Schenck's (the Newport BF Zoo owner) happy to instruct you in the ways of the monarch:
"Summer monarchs live for a week, [but] the ones that hatch out in September and October do not mate. They fly to Mexico and literally live on ice... in the mountains until January or February, at which time they wake up, mate, and then their clock starts to tick. They have a week to ten days to live. In that week to ten days they lay eggs and the eggs eventually become adults which travel north [toward] the United States and... Canada."
"Monarchs have a tiny little chip of ferric oxide in their brain—a biological computer chip." They use the ferric oxide to keep track of the magnetic poles and that, along with the position of the sun, helps them to chart the path of their migration. "It takes like four or five generations for the monarchs to start getting up to New England. They start their migration in February, [but] we don't see monarchs arrive here until June."
The source link is http://www.quahog.org/attractions/index.php?id=1038 for more information.
And another website (a science fair report, I think) that does a really nice job of explaining the Monarch's migration patterns and issues.
http://butterflywebsite.com/Articles/uminn/monarchs.html
This message was edited Jul 31, 2006 11:00 PM
tabasco - did I read that correctly? You're supposed to have 50 milkweed plants to attract Monarchs?
I have just 2 full grown A. incarnata - the pink one and I let them go to seed last year and dug up the babies and transplanted 2-3 along the woods where I know i can let them flourish. I got some of the orange A. tuberosa which are already seeded in a pot to germinate next year - I'm sure they need winter cold to germinate.
I get a few Monarchs every year and they bee line straight for my clumps of A. incarnata. I have Swallowtails in the garden right now but the Monarchs that were here are nowhere to be seen. I hope they've laid eggs and moved on. I always assumed they were returning to my garden because they hatched here the previous year. - there is some magic thinking!
Yes, I had read that you should have 50 milkweeds but that seems excessive to me, too.
I have maybe 10 or 12 and they are not in a clump but spread around my garden (which is a 'no-no' too according to what I've read)...
Apparently in observed Monarch behaviors a female monarch will touch down onto three or four milkweeds before laying eggs. Some say this is so she is sure there are enough plants for her young to eat. I don't know if that is so, but it's what the researchers surmise.
Also, I think they advise having large clumps because the monarchs have poor vision and of course the clumps are easier to see from above.
Also, FYI, the butterflies like the color red, so if you put out butterfly 'mung' (bait) or 'nectar' (1 to 4 sugar to water ratio--same as for hummers) on a plate with a sponge or paper towels, a red plate is a good color to use (but monarchs don't generally go for the 'mung').
This is all info I have read while google-ing around for BF info. Some I have tried, but I'm no expert, that's for sure.
We do have monarchs visiting us, along with lots of Swallowtails, frits, cabbage and sulphurs. I like to think it's my garden and all the 'lures' I put out, but we live next to a park that has a big butterfly 'meadow' and that may be the real attraction!
Keep us posted on who is visiting your garden. Good luck. t.
Too much info to process this late but I personally don't believe that the Monarch's only live for a week. I've never read that before either. And if they only had like 10 days to live after the migration back starts then how would they be able to track them with the tags if those died? Obviously the tagged ones are living longer than a week to get back to the US and be found and recorded. OH, and I remember and old story once that I read on one of the Monarch sites about someone having one of their tagged bfly's be recorded like 2 years later.
I don't think you have to have 50 milkweed plants either. Last year I probably did but they find one just as easy. Only God knows how they find them and that's good enough for me. It actually makes it more amazing. They don't need patches of bright milkweed to locate wild mw either. It grows sporadically along roadsides, not in large masses, and every time I've ever looked at one I found eggs or cats on it.
I've got to go pull up some stuff to make room for more milkweed to grow for later. That's a tough job tho because I hate pulling zinnias.
I had to Google that Ageratum to see what you were talking about. lol I finally remembered that I sent you Mist Flower. It's not the Ageratum tho. It's Eupatorium greggii, West Texas Mist Flower. Here is the PlantFile info: http://davesgarden.com/pf/go/53449/index.html
I don't know why it doesn't come up when you do a search under Eupatorium greggii tho. ?
I was at the Butterfly Conservatory up near Toronto and asked about those plates - which they have all over indoors. They said that in the typical garden the sugar water ferments and isn't used by the butterflies and just attracts unwanted insects. I have planted Monarda Jacob Kline along with all my milkweed. I also planted a couple of Lobelia cardinalis last year and I like them so will get more. Have no idea if they are butterfly magnets because they don't seem to be attracting them in my garden - but they are the prettiest red I've ever seen this time of year.
FWIW- I don't recall the source right now but I read to group the nectar plants so that the butterflies don't tire and to spread out the larval plants to cut down on predation.
Maggie
Alyrics, do you have a picture of your lobelia cardinalis?If so could you post it please.
as per 50 milkweed plants maybe they mean if your in the path of the mass migration.
KK i'm wondering about possible reasons for the problems were haveing with the chrysalis.I my neighborhood most people are pretty spray happy with their chemicals.I'm curious when the females are out and about nectaring and they come upon a nectar flower that has been sprayed with something,not strong enough to kill them,but they digest it and then could they pass it on to the eggs they lay. I know when I read labels there's a ton of stuff that warn pregnant women to stay away from the stuff.does the same apply to butterflies?Man-O-Man the uphill battle these little guys have got to fight just to survive.
Don
donlaclair
butterflies are extremely susceptible to any kind of chemical. It kills the adult. Very sad, I hope you can provide a haven for them.
Interesting thread developing here....
So, I went to the library and checked out 4 books on butterflies and ordered two more on Monarch Migrations (the 'classic' by Urquist (?), the librarian told me) so hopefully I will get some of my curiosity satisfied when they are delivered.
What I have learned so far from your posts and different sites is that your Monarch experience down in FL and TX seems to be totally different from ours up here in the north.
You southerners must have many, many, BFs stopping in your gardens to lay eggs after their 'overwintering' experience in Mexico. Then those fresh new critters disburse a little futher north east and west and yet another crop is born and they continue even farther as far as Canada in some cases.
(One site I read said that the FL monarchs generally live about 15 or fewer days and up to 30-35 days. Of course, they are always learning new information and they are getting more and more tagged so they are hoping to have better data soon. )
Well, I don't know what's 'fact' and what's an 'educated guess', but these BFs are very fascinating.
Thanks, kk, for clarifying the 'West Texas Mistflower'. It has not bloomed for me yet, but it is looking very robust and I expect it will flower about the same time as my Helenium and new england asters for a good show. I wonder if our Ohio Butterflies will like it.
I still wish I had planted more Milkweed. No one is paying any attention to my Lobelia Cardinalis. I planted it for the HBs and they don't even care for it. It was nice and red for the Fourth of July party, though!
I am going out to make a nice mushed up banana, molasses, and wine dessert for my BFs. It's so hot out there today they need a little refreshment!
Good luck with your BFs. t.
donlaclair - here is 1 shot I took a couple days ago. The red in the foreground is the Lobelia. NOt a great shot, I thought I took others but don't see them.
KK I just recieved an e-mail in return to my question about the chrysalis that didn't open.It's from Mirian Medina Hay-Roe PH D. McGuire Center for Lepidoptera and Biodiveresity Florida Museum of Natural History.She replied "It seems to me that you have a virus. The virus could be on the milkweed plants or in the cage where you keep the chrysalis.My advise is to;
1. Clean your cage and your tools with a 20% bleach water
2. Get new plants and expose old plants to the sun for atleast one month.Don't feed caterpillars with those plants.
3.If adult butterflies lay eggs on the old plants ,carefully remove eggs and raise them on new plants.
Good Luck "
welp I guess I've got to start some more milkweed. and do a better cage clean.We were pretty sure it was a virus and now I'm more ,
Don
Yikes, how many are you going to have to destroy? My plants are outside in the beds so I think mine are safe. Mine is probably a virus, or possibly something else.
I had a Black Swallowtail in the same cage that died also. The chrysalis was cracked open but part of it caught my eye so I took it down too and it was dried and black looking inside. I don't know if they can be infected by the same virus tho.
I had some Bordered Patch's in there too and they were just fine. ?? I'm not putting anything in there for a while. It's sitting outside with the top of in the sun and let the sun scorch it for a while.
I'm just going to let them sit in the sun for a while,they are all in pots any way.And then give the cage a real bleach job.
Good luck! Keep us updated when you start using it again. I'll do the same.
Oh my - a virus? Think it could attack outside milkweed? My milkweed are outside my back door so I can see all the fun. I thought wasps might have been eating my cats. (I got this from another post somewhere) The plants look bad - about four ft. tall with leaves on the top third. Anyone think this is a virus or does milkweed hate 95 degrees with 95% humidity common here? I have 5 pretty big plants and am nursing some baby offspring milkweed. I see about 3 different kinds of butterflies a day, and will continue to add plants to attract them. Monarchs were here all winter last year, and I'm trying to keep my milkweed viable for this year!
I've watched the posts about raising the cats in a cage - which would protect them from wasp predators, I guess. I'm interested in that - any wisdom is appreciated.
In 1973 I lived in SanAntonio (college way back then!) and as an Oklahoma native, I couldn't believe the numbers of monarchs I saw in October. That was the beginning of my butterfly fascination which has been dormant until the last 3 years. Yes - the kids do grow up and you can cultivate old interests!
Thanks for any wisdom!