Monarch Larva Monitoring Project Citizen Science

Hi, everyone!

Since there seems to be a lot of interest in growing and observing Milkweeds and Monarchs on DG, I thought I would post the link of the "Monarch Larva Monitoring Project", directed by Dr. Karen Oberhauser of the University of Minnesota.

http://www.mlmp.org/monitoring.html

Dr. Oberhauser is looking for volunteers to observe and report butterfly behaviors in their milkweed patches. MLMP has watchers all over the country, but they are looking for more volunteers. Details are available on the site, or in the pdf. newsletter link below on the last page. They welcome independent volunteers and schools and other groups to participate.

http://www.mlmp.org/pdfs/mlmp2006newsletter.pdf

Open this link and you can click on your state and find out the results from their year-to-year Monarch monitoring efforts. Very interesting.

http://www.mlmp.org/results.asp

This could be fun to do!

I took this photo myself today with a wee cat on my Mexican Milkweed. I'll have to watch him and see how he grows as the days go by... :)

T, thanks for the links!

TT, keep an eye out for those assassin bugs, I'm still finding those buggers on my mw along with Monarch eggs.

yikes, fly....will do..!

fly_girl -I have a way to deal with those vermits and the milkweed beetles! I wear gardening gloves and squeeze and pop them to eliminate them. Sounds gross, but it works to keep them from destroying my milkweed. And I avoid pesticides which is the main reason I do that! My gloves get washed weekly! lol

lol becky.....
I haven't seen any assassin beetles...but I do keep seeing aphids all along the blooms and seed pods. :p Any harm to my wee cat?

Becky, I do the same thing, if they are small without wings I move them, but the adults get the glove treatment. I hate to kill them because they are beneficials, but they love the mw and hang out there. I think the milkweed bugs are gone, I haven't seen those in a while. I also squish the aphids which, thankfully, seem to be gone too, for now. Yes, it's gross but ya gotta do what ya gotta do for the bfs, right? lol

great link Tabasco. No one is doing it here in MS this year. Will be something to start in spring. Looks like 1 person started last year but didn't complete it. Hurricane Katrina is probably why