Date: 01/01/2015

Number: 1

I'm raising Monarch butterflies for the University of Georgia's Monarch Health Lab, testing for O.e. spores. I had thought I had brought all of the caterpillars in at least a week ago to raise indoors in hampers with milkweed plants. I thought I had also checked very closely for any left over eggs from the last ovipositing female. Evidently I missed several eggs. Today, while working in the garden, cleaning up after our "big" storm, I found 3 baby monarch caterpillars on a milkweed plant. This is something I don't think a lot of the researchers understand. I had cut back the tropical milkweed I had, and the native milkweed plants are just bits of dead stems. But the females don't seem to care~they place their eggs on the dead stems of the native milkweed, and on the bare stalks of the tropical milkweeds. I've corresponded with quite a few people here in southern California (I'm coastal) who have the same thing happening to them. Cut back or dormant milkweed plants and caterpillars being discovered on the plants. Our problem isn't only what will the caterpillars eat; we also have the problem of few to no nectar plants available for the butterflies to eat from. And then there is the cold weather...these butterflies could not make it to another site because of the cold. And even if they did, there isn't a lot of nectar plants to provide nourishment. I've tried to explain this situation to researchers in the east, but because they don't live here and actually see it happening despite attempts to restrict the availability of any milkweed, these females lay their eggs and then the whole cycle starts over.

Carlsbad, CA

Latitude: 33.2 Longitude: -117.3

Observed by: Nancee
Contact Observer

The observer's e-mail address will not be disclosed.
Contact will be made through a web-based form.