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
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
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).
Sunday, September 24 Today a female monarch butterfly is on the dockside tropical milkweed laying eggs and sipping nectar from the blossoms. I haven't seen one in over a month.
Here's an interesting way to attract butterflies to your garden.
by Walter Reeves of the Atlanta Botanical Garden.
Saturday, September 23. Diez y Ocho has become a chrysalid.
Friday, September 22, Wabi Sabi: What I learned from the butterfly that could not fly.
I learned today that as Scott mentioned, Wabi Sabi's affliction was caused by OE, as shown in PBS Deep Look.
Click HERE for a superb explanatory video. It dramatically makes the case for the proper management of tropical milkweed: 1.harvest, and compost the seed pods before they open and 2. Trim milkweed down to 4 inches in January so they don't concentrate OE spores to next season's butterflies. By the way, if you have caterpillars, they will eat the seed pods too.
Sunday, September 18 Monarch caterpillar (Diez y Ocho) brought in for protection hopefully before tachinid flies have laid their eggs.
Sunday, September 10 About 30 milkweed seeds have sprouted in just 6-7 days.
Saturday, September 9 Ten milkweed seeds have sprouted.Wabi Sabi has emerged from her chrysalis but her legs are too weak to hold on to her perch as a result of OE.
Photo credit: Senka Dorn
Friday, Sept. 8 Scott volunteers to take home the most recent chrysalid for release in his neighborhood.
When wings are visible in the chrysalid, the butterfly will emerge within 24 hours.
Sunday, September 3 Chrysalid #5 is in its 3rd day.
Saturday, September 2. a. planted 50 tropical milkweed seeds in a sprouting tray. b. 6th caterpillar, the stowaway, (length 3cm) has died (cause unknown).
Friday, September 1, 2023 5th caterpillar entered chrysalis stage today. Let's call her Cinco.
Wednesday, August 30, Tachinid flies are formidable predators, causing four of the five Monarch caterpillars in the vivarium to perish as of today. Five tachinid fly larvae descended from the fourth monarch caterpillar today. I'd hoped to have brought them inside (out of predatory danger) but these energetic flies had already deposited eggs on the 4 caterpillars I'd brought in, yielding a 100% Monarch mortality rate mentioned previously.
A sobering calculation: 5 fly larvae emerged from a single monarch caterpillar. Each fly will mature into an adult fly in few days, say 1 week when they will mate and go on to deposit eggs on unprotected caterpillars contributing to a staggering fly population increase that explains the 100% mortality rate as of today.
It is easy to take sides as these ecological relationships unfold (I'm working for more Monarch Butterflies.) If anyone has ideas on how to suppress this fly predation, we'll be able to release more Monarch butterflies into the wild. Perhaps these butterflies will migrate to a location with fewer predatory flies.
Tuesday, August 29 of the vivarium six, 1 caterpillar (A) fatality (tachinid) today. The four remaining larvae are simultaneously briefly and unexpectedly pausing their feeding behavior (all are still). (B) missing one antennae is now 10:39 am) on the netted vivarium "ceiling". Is it ready for it's chrysalid stage? No. It has descended back to the wooden deck. 10:45 am now back to the ceiling. 10:50 now at leaf level. 10:53 now at bottom.
Monday, August 28, 2023 Monarch caterpillar census 10 (five on the deck, six in the vivarium). The 6th, too small to be noticed, maybe 1st or 2nd install, was a milkweed stowaway. Idea: this larva too young to be parasitized? Only 5 seeds sprouted from the 40 tropical milkweed seeds from 2021. From a late start*, caterpillar activity is back in full swing.
*Later start because of wet winter, and/or cooler temperature?
Tuesday July 25, 2023 A. I found a monarch caterpillar today on the soil near the base of a tropical milkweed on the front deck (south long planter.) B. Also, planted (in a 4"X10"tray) 40 seeds originally collected between November and December 2021. C. Milkweed trimmed down to 3inches on the south side of the house have not yet come back. 4 containers of tropical milkweed (on or adjacent to the deck) are growing fast.
Photo Paul Ho
Sunday, July 23 Paul has 20 monarch caterpillars in Zone 3. They are eating milkweed faster than the plants can grow.
See photo -->
How many caterpillars are in this photo?
Friday, June 23, 2023 5th straight day of sunshine. Paul (Zone 3 on the map) reports that his first monarch caterpillar has just gone to chrysalis stage. Let's check where he is on the map. I bet it's warmer in Zone 3.
Tom and Virginia(Zone 2) report they've spotted monarch adults in the last few weeks, but none seen here is South Laguna. Only 1 butterfly sighting (laying eggs) here in Zone 1 but I only found 1 egg.
Wednesday June 21 Third sunny day in a row following 9 weeks without sunshine here in Laguna Beach, which may explain why we haven't seen monarch butterflies as of this date.
Milkweed has sprouted from last seasons trimmed 3 inch stalks. (See Figure 1 below). So there is plenty of food when they arrive.
Almost Season 3.
Wednesday, Feb. 1, 2023 I have trimmed last season's tropical milkweed down to about 3 inches from the ground. This will reduce Monarch butterfly exposure to the fatal disease known as OE Ophryocystis elektroscirria (See Figure 2 below) Click HERE for more.
Spring temperatures are a few weeks away but good news has been published.(See Winter Count below)
FIGURE 1. If you haven't topped your tropical milkweed, this is a good time to do it to protect next seasons monarch butterflies from OE. Ophryocystis elektroscirria, a protozoan (single celled) organism infecting monarch, queen and lesser wanderer butterflies that scientists believe evolved alongside monarchs.
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, Place milkweed florets with blossoms to feed the isolated adult.
To control the dangerous spread of Ophryocystis elektroscirrha (OE), a parasite that infects monarch butterflies, I have cut my tropical milkweed plants down to 4 inch stems without leaves. (see photo below)
OE is a single-celled organism, a protozoan whose spores rest dormant on Asclepias curassavica (tropical milkweed), a fast growing, non-native plant favored by monarch butterflies and their larva. Click HERE for more about O.E. By cutting these milkweed plants, the protozoan parasites residing on the foilage are completely eliminated. When new leaves appear in spring, they are free of the parasites that have been linked to lower monarch migration success, reduction in body mass, mating success, lifespan, and ability to fly.
There comes with rain somtimes an earthy scent, musky, fresh and
pleasant.
LET'S GO TO AN ATMOSPHERIC SCIENTIST FOR THE EXPLANATION.
Photo by: Lucy Chian
As the ground moistens a fragrant combination of chemical
compounds called petrichor is splattered and tiny particles of aerosols
are ejected.
The source is an actinobacteria that becomes more active as humidity
rises releasing geosmin, a type of alcohol. The human nose can detect
just a few parts of geosimin per trillion air molecules.
Source: Dr. Timothy Logan, professor of Atmospheric Sciences at Texas
A&M University.
Actinobacteria are of enormous importance because forests and agriculture depend on their ability to decompose organic matter making smaller molecules that can be taken up again by plants. Click HERE for more.
Once
I hypothesized that this was the scent of nitrogen since our air is 80%
nitrogen. I imagined falling raindrops picking up nitrogen molecules on
the way down but my hypothesis was wrong. No, raindrops do pick up
nitrogen on the way down, but that's not what we detect when we smell
rain.
Maybe Dr. Logan can tell me why it smells like home when I return to the San Luis Valley of Colorado, my childhood home, or why when I landed in Kenya I said: "Nairobi smells like home."
Well, it's par for the course, whey one question is answered, others pop up in it's place.
What do we know about the December 5, 2022 Thermo Nuclear Fusion event at LLNL (Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory) in California? Start with 10,000 people.
Fusion powers our sun and other stars. Historically, we have dreamed of making clean energy but it has not been possible to generate more energy than what it takes to fuel a reactor in a power plant.
But on December 5th, 2022 a team of scientists at LLNL fired 192 giant lasers into the ends of a gold capsule target containing a bb sized pellet of very heavy hydrogen.(see Fig. 1 )
Figure 1
A gold capsule under the focus of 192 lasers instantly vaporizes creating a plasma that compresses the heavy hydrogen pellet inside. This extreme pressure forces the hydrogen molecules to release more energy that it took to power the 192 lasers. This was the world changing thermonuclear event of December 5, 2022 that took place 47 miles east of San Francisco.
Experimental Physicist Tammy Ma explains
Figure 2 : using HEAVY HYDROGEN (from sea water. Just one gallon of seawater could produce as much energy as 300 gallons of gasoline.Credit: https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2014/02/fuel-gain-over-unity-in-inertially.html
There are two pathways to the creation of fusion energy: 1. magnetic confinement and 2. inertial confinement (used at LLNL).
1. Magnetic-confinement bottles the fusion reaction into a magnetic container while inertial-confinement employs laser arrays.
Illustration: Chris Philpot
How The National Ignition Facility (NIF) Works
QUESTION FOR THE DAY August 5, 2022
1. Why does the rain have a pleasant scent? Click HERE.
2. How far away is lightning? Click HERE. Scroll way down for the answer.
3. Tachinid flies lay their eggs by either 1. depositing eggs directly on monarch caterpillars or 2. depositing eggs on milkweed plants emitting a distress scent that draws tachinids to a prime egg depositing location, and where caterpillars will come in close contact with eggs.
Our question for today is which method of egg transfer is being used by tachinid flies here in Orange County California? When we find this answer, we'll better be able to increase the chances of survival for local monarch butterflies. This week, I've brought small caterpillars to safety inside just in case tachinid eggs are deposited on older caterpillars. I've also started washing milkweed leaves and seed pods in case tachinid eggs have been left on the milkweed. Next, I'll do research on which egg depositing method is in play at this location.
Monarch butterflies are facing extinction. The cause might just be a Tachinid, a beneficial fly (beneficial to agriculture) but not to Monarch butterflies. See video clips 1 & 2.
Video Clip 1
Source: Toby Manzanares
Here, we will start a data set that will shed light on this threat during Monarch Season 2.
DATEDEATHS FROM UNKNOWNSURVIVED TO
PARASITOIDS CAUSE OF DEATHADULT BUTTERFLY
8-10-202215 2 4
QUESTION FOR THE DAY Some species of tachinid flies 1. lay their eggs directly on monarch caterpillars while others species 2. deposit them indirectly on milkweed plants.
When monarch caterpillars feed on milkweed, the plant emits a distress scent. Tachinids flies evolved to follow the trail of that scent to located monarch larvae.
Our question for today is which method of egg transfer is being used by tachinid flies here in Orange County California? When we find this answer, we'll better be able to increase the chances of survival for local monarch butterflies. This week, I've brought small caterpillars to safety inside just in case tachinid eggs are deposited on older caterpillars. I've also started washing milkweed leaves and seed pods in case tachinid eggs have been left on the milkweed. Next, I'll do research on which egg depositing method is in play at this location.
SOURCE #1SOURCE #2 Our parasitoid Tachinid fly may be Chetogena sp. documented in El Morro Canyon, Laguna Beach.CA
SOURCE #2
"In some species, eggs are deposited on foliage near the host insect, and the maggots are ingested during feeding by the host after they hatch. In other species, the adult fly glues eggs to the body of the host, and the maggots penetrate into the host's body after the eggs hatch. Some female tachinids possess a piercing ovipositor and insert their eggs into the host body. In all cases, tachinid maggots feed internally in their hosts and exit the host body to pupate." --From University of California Agriculture and Natural Resources.
The following four photos are to aid in the identification of the tachinid fly parasite in our South Laguna Beach study.
"A study looking at the rates of parasitization by the most common tachinid parasitoid of Monarchs, Lespesia archippivora, showed that about 13% of wild Monarch caterpillars contained these parasitoids!" --Matthew L. Gimmel, Ph.D. Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History
So how do Tachinid eggs get onto and into a Monarch caterpillar?
James E. O'Hara http://www.nadsdiptera.org/Tach/AboutTachs/TachOverview.html
"The ancestral mode of host finding in Tachinidae likely involved a series of cues, olfactory and visual, that guided a searching female to the right microhabitat and host plant and then to an exposed host, where perhaps tactile stimuli initiated oviposition behavior. This method of host location is still common, but there are many sophisticated behaviors that have evolved to aid the searching tachinid. For example, oviposition in numerous tachinids does not involve the visual sighting of a host. In the case of Goniini, microtype eggs are deposited on the food plant of a host, usually in response to plant volatiles released at the site of feeding damage, and the eggs do not hatch until ingested by a host."
"Tachinid flies and other parasitoids exert selection pressures on their hosts to evolve ways in which to minimize parasitism. The more obvious may involve the evolution of cryptic coloration, specialized feeding strategies such as concealed feeding or feeding at night, or evasive maneuvers that are evoked when a host is attacked. Less obvious, but quite important at the community level, are the effects of tachinid parasitism on host and host-plant interactions (i.e., tritrophic interactions). Insect herbivores do not always feed preferentially on plant species that provide the highest nutrition. Certain insect herbivores will feed on less preferred host plants if such feeding reduces their level of mortality due to parasitism. The investigation of enemy-free space as an important component of tritrophic interactions is an active area of research."
