Date: 09/17/2006

Number: 1

I found several clumps of roosting monarchs today in some silver maple trees near a long clover rich strip that borders a farm field. About 7 feet up, 3 small branches in one tree had an estimated 60 monarchs roosting on them! This evening I went to some white pines in another area where I saw maybe 20 monarchs last night but tonight there were none there. One of the ones I saw there last night was easily half the size of a normal adult!!

I am familiar with the Painted Lady but the one I saw was definitely a miniature monarch. I checked to see it was a Viceroy but it wasn't. It was just out of my reach clinging on a white pine branch in the cool of the evening.

There was a normal sized adult monarch within a foot of it and others nearby. I carefully compared it with the normal one closest to it. I don't want to estimate the inches but to be as accurate as I can it was no more than 60% normal size and probably more like 50%. I have seen small adults that came from caterpillars that went into the chrysalis stage early, always because they had been captured and didn't have absolutely fresh leaves after that. This one was a little smaller than the smallest of the captives I've ever seen though. It may have been a captive that was released.

Waterloo, IA

Latitude: 42.4 Longitude: -92.3

Observed by: Tom
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