SEASON 5 MONARCH BUTTERFLIES

August 5, 2025 Tuesday 6:41am 

Field has received his milkweed seeds in Hebron, Maine!

One butterfly just unfolded from its chrysalis today. I've released 11 monarch butterflies into the wild: and Paul has released 40 so far this season.

1 caterpillar fatality caused by tachinid fly parasite. 

Starting to plan for next year: When should we plant milkweed seeds to have enough food for caterpillars when they hatch? 

Field, let me know when your milkweed seeds sprout. We will track them this year to see how much they grow so we know  when to sow seeds next year.

July 24, 2025. Thursday, with `10 chrysalids (the most I've had at one time in 5 years, I asked Paul how many he'd released, 37 so far this year and over 50 last year.  No tachinid flies at my location but Paul tells me they have started to slip inside his netted caterpillar nursery.

We are having trouble growing enough milkweed for our caterpillars. keeping

 

Good news: Last years predatory tachinid flies are missing this season which may explain the increase in the number of monarch chrysalids reaching the adult stage.    The tachinids flies were so abundant last year that 50% of our chrysalids died before reaching adulthood.  Which begs the question:  what has caused the disappearance of these predators? 

Click HERE for more details on this parasitic fly

JULY 22, 2025  This female monarch butterfly will lay 300 to 500 eggs in just a few weeks, or maybe she will break the most laid eggs record of 1,000 in a single season!

Less than 10% of these egg hatchlings will live into adulthood. Let's do the math... 10% of 500 comes to 50 adult butterflies. This is my 5th season of releasing Monarchs into the wild, and the first time I've had 10 chrysalids at once in my butterfly "nursery". Let's hope that this year will show a monarch butterfly population increase to counter the 90% declines of previous years.

3:26 pm... Patricia takes Beta out to the observation deck. 

From there it will take flight into the wild blue yonder.

JULY Hi Field, I am your third cousin Toby. This is an invitation for you to join our team called the DFKTC, that stands for Diana Field, Katie, Toby and Corina (Aunt Corina). We are going to work together to save beautiful monarch butterflies like this one from extinction… Stay tuned for more DFKTC news!

This map shows that it takes 4 generations of Monarch Butterflies to make a round trip between Maine and Michoacán Mexico and back to Maine again.  If we walked from Portland Maine, to Michoacán, we'd walk 3,179 miles, it would take 1,159 hours without stopping! Let's see... if we walk 10 hours a day, how many days would it take you to get from Maine to Michoacán?

JULY 15, 2025 Tuesday morning. The milkweed plant outside the kitchen window is topped with the usual red-orange blossom clusters. Today, I notice 1mm crystal clear spheres at the bottom of many single blossoms. Is those droplets of nectar or water? I go outside, touch a fingertip to one of the droplets and give it a taste test. It's sweet. I theorize: there is a robust dark reaction photosynthesis phase that produces sugar molecules in so much abundance in tropical milkweed that it is excreted at the base of the blossoms and visible in the morning.  I plan to take photos of this tomorrow.

Zeta enters J stage attached under the vivarium deck side panel), Due July 29.

JULY 14 Monday, Chrysalids #4 metamorphosis begins, Delta, and 5 Epsilon,  Due July 28 In five seasons, this is the first time there have been this many chrysalids sharing the vivarium.

JULY 13 Sunday, #3 metamorphosis begins, Gamma Due July 27

JULY 11 Friday, Chrysalid #2 metamorphosis begins, Beta, Due July 25

JULY 8, 2025 Tuesday 12:10 pm First larva Alpha, enters "J" stage (Pupa tomorrow?) Diana can take this one back to Denver where it will emerge around July 22nd.

Egg               5 days               at 72°F

Larva            18 day

Chrysalis      14 days

                     37 days total     at 72°F    (Emergence in 22 days at 82° 

There are no tachinid parasitic flies to kill monarch caterpillars this year. Since tachinid flies are used to suppress agricultural pests, I wonder if there has been an overuse of this biocontrol method that explains the previous years near extinction collapse of the monarch butterfly population?

Click HERE to view a tachinid parasite larva

emerging from a monarch caterpillar.

https://www.johnnybutterflyseed.com/2023/07/27/monarch-butterfly-lifecycle-timeline/

SEASON 4 MONARCH BUTTERFLIES

 JULY 5, 2024  Released Monarch butterfly #1 on the deck this afternoon. The daily temperature has risen to 78 degrees for the first time this season. Cooler along the coast this close to the ocean might explain the delay in Monarch activity. This season I will bring in and feed the caterpillars inside the house. 

July 7, 2024  Monarch butterfly #2 has emerged from its chrysalis. Wild release #2 today. 

August 19, Wild release #3 with another two caterpillars nearing their next metamorphic stage. The plan to feed these caterpillars requires several trips each day to harvest milkweed leaves for their growth.  This is not sustainable. It is possible only because I'm retired.

August 20, Chrysalid #4 formed today. No sign of the parasitic tachinid flies so far this season. I am optimistic that survival to the butterfly stage will increase this season.

August 21, chrysalid #5 formed today.

August 22, 2024 9:40 am   Caterpillar 6 beginning J stage today (see photo below). 

10:05 am Caterpillar 6 is now a chrysalid.  Harvesting milkweed is no longer necessary at least for the next few weeks as I do not see any new caterpillars.

From a lifetime in Yosemite Valley

Photo credit: Toby Manzanares

Ahh… Yosemite, one of my favorite places, where you can enter a rainbow.

The best way into Yosemite Valley is through the tunnel, an experience described by some as akin to being born.

"A long dark tunnel, with a far away bright light, which after a moment appears to grow larger... and larger until you burst through into a bright and beautiful place that other's say: "Looks like heaven."

Slow down as you exit the tunnel to turn left into the view point parking lot, where my students often took their first group photo (with Bridalveil Falls in the background.

Then drive on to the Yosemite Valley Visitor Center where, Park Rangers will provide maps and up to date information. It's a great place to start your visit.

Also on this map, the Ahwahnee Hotel which has a wonderful breakfast at a reasonable price in a national historic site. Charming when you look out to find deer grazing just a few feet away.

The 1.5 mile hike to the Vernal Fall Footbridge usually takes one to one and a half hours. For the 2.4 mile hike to the top of the Vernal Fall count on roughly 3 hours.  Experiencing the Mist Trail is worthy of the time and effort.  Take a rain poncho, the “mist” is sometimes thick.

I’d walk students through the Mist Trail rainbow, a vivid memory, the mist and rainbow colors, to last a lifetime. 

 

"Doc" Ricketts, John Steinbeck, Monterey and the Sea of Cortez

"The tide teaches us to live with mystery and complexity. It lives in the body of a mud shrimp, signaling when to swim and when to burrow. It lives in sandpipers, crabs, and whelks. It lives in the spirit of bores, in the prayers of monks. The tide is vibration, music, time."  —Jonathan White, Tides: The Science and Spirit of the Ocean

Waiting for Doc to answer the door, I knock again, but the timing is off (about 80 years.)  He's not here, but I more clearly imagine Ed Ricketts and John Steinbeck just inside.

Teaching biology has so many wonderful parts like when students are able to connect the dots, especially when two seemingly different worlds collide. The worlds of literature and biology.

My favorite biologist, Ed Ricketts, and my favorite novelist, John Steinbeck, spent some of the richest moments of their lives, here just inside this door at 800 Cannery Row in Monterey California. Here is where they planned their expedition to the Sea of Cortez. 

Image credit: Jeffrey M. Banister, Journal of the Southwest, Vol. 62, Number 2, Summer 2020

Click HERE for an 80 year retrospective on the Log of the Sea of Cortez

The Log of the Sea of Cortez 

To do:  vet the video below

DANA POINT BUTTERFLY HABITATS

 

Monarch Butterflies and Tropical Milkweed Do's and Do Nots.

You are in a position to help save Monarch Butterflies from extinction! To begin, click on the  4 minute video below (best viewed full screen).

Since the 1990's there has been an 80% decline 

in the Central Monarch population. (Zone B below)

Since the 1980's, the Western Monarch population

has declined by 99%. (Zone A below)

How you can help.

  

Plant native milkweed in your yard or in containers 12" in diameter, smaller pots, will do.  Since I've not had any success with native milkweed, I've grown tropical milkweed instead, but it has to be cut back to 4 inch stalks around December 31st or they become a grave danger to future generations of monarch butterflies. (scroll down for explanation). It should also be mentioned that when your new tropical milkweeds are mature enough, the seed pods must be harvested and composted in order to prevent the seeds from spreading in the wild which could be disastrous. (scroll down for explanation). 

Follow the steps below and grow your own milkweed butterfly forest.

Step 1:  I drop about 30 seeds into a glass of water to soak overnight or two, which might shorten germination time. Once under ground, it took 17 days for these seeds to germinate. (That was 3 years ago). This year the seeds sprouted in 7 days. (see Figure 2)

Figure 1 

Figure 2 Topical milkweed sprouts September 23, 2003

Why we have to harvest and compost 

tropical milkweed seedpods and cut back 

tropical milkweed plants to 4 inches by December 31st.

Click on the PBS video below.

Ophryocystis elektroscirria, is a protozoan (single celled) organism that infects monarch butterflies when they land on infested tropical milkweed.  It accumulates on next season's tropical milkweed if not cut back in January.

Ophryocytis elektroscirria (

OE)

, first grows on tropical milkweed then infects monarch larvae. (scroll down to OE). Because tropical milkweed grows year round, the 

concentration of OE on subsequent milkweed seasons increases the infection rate on Monarch butterflies. Native milkweed dies back during the winter.

When monarch butterflies land on second season tropical milkweed, they pick up OE which infects their offspring. 

OE damage takes place during the chrysalid stage. 

(S

ee Figure 3) 

While the infected monarch adults do not survive to migrate, they do spread the protozoan parasite.

Vigilant 

FIGURE 3  SIGNS OF OE INFECTION:

SPORES SEEN AS DARK PATCHES IN A MONARCH BUTTERFLY CHRYSALIS

Photo credit: University of Georgia, Athens

Click HERE for more detailed OE information.

OE damage takes place during the chrysalid stage. While the infected adults do not survive to migrate, they do spread the protozoan parasite.  If you see the sign of infection above, keep this butterfly isolated when it emerges.

Here's an interesting way to attract butterflies to your garden 

by Walter Reeves of the Atlanta Botanical Garden.

 

NAMING RIGHTS TO SAGAMARTHA (aka Everest), THE HIGHEST MOUNTAIN IN THE WORLD

Everest never saw the mountain and never visited the area, but the mountain was given a colonial name without the consent of the Nepali people.

Nor was Edmund Hilary the first to climb Sagarmatha. 

wiki   In November 2020, Nepali politicians claimed China had annexed more than 150 hectares of Nepal land. The Nepali government in September 2021 formed a team

This team submitted its report on 26 September which brought the conclusion of claim being truth. It suggested making a joint force for dispute resolution.   In early 2022, a Nepali government report was leaked. The report indicated the previously alleged buildings were on Chinese side, but found that China has built fences, a canal, and a road that encroached on Nepali soil.^[20]

Sagarmatha (Everest) borders China and Nepal. From it's highest point, the southern slope in Nepalese, the northern Chinese. This view from the south shows the Nepalese view of Sagarmatha.

Figure 2: Tenzing Norgay,  the first to climb Sagarmatha (Everest).