Date: 12/31/2022

Number: 1

On September 26 my wife and I found a male monarch flopping around in the grass in a local park, with seriously deformed wings. We think that he had just emerged from chrysalis, but fell down and his wings never got the proper shape. We took him in and have cared for him since. He thrashes around a lot and has all but destroyed the remaining parts of his wings, and lost three of his foot claws and the bottom segment of one leg. But he remains energetic and is eating. When the weather is warmer he feeds on yard dandelions, and otherwise we give him a "smoothie" of sugar water, blueberry juice and mud; he especially likes eating from the mud. It's been kind of an experiment to see if he can survive as long as his cousins, who are partying down in Mexico. We only expose him to outside light and keep the house about 60 degrees at night, 68 day.

Urbana, IL

Latitude: 40.1 Longitude: -88.2

Observed by: Kevin
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