Date: 04/19/2024

Number: 1

Of the four Monarch butterflies that eclosed between November 10th to 15th in the heated greenhouse, 3 lived to be 4.5 months old (2 males and one female). Males developed gonads first and were enthusiastically chasing the immature females. By the time, females matured males died. Males were too adventurous and were accident prone. Therefore became handicapped faster (lost legs, shredded wings). One female died last week. The last female, shown in photo, exploring a tulip, lived for 161 days after eclosing and died yesterday. Probably could have lived a week longer but surfing through mulch caused slight damage to its belly. However, all butterflies thoroughly enjoyed exploring new flowers as soon as temperatures got better outdoors. Wondering if males maturing earlier is nature's way of preventing from mating with siblings. All 4 caterpillars were found on a single living milkweed after a killing freeze. And we transferred them to the milkweeds in the greenhouse. Watching them has been a wonderful experience. They even mistook snow for an ocean (?) and wanted to get out of the greenhouse. But when we placed them on snow, they tried flying over it and soon collapsed from cold. Never again tried getting out until the weather got warmer. All 4 preferred the sunny floral section to the shady woodlands, though woodlands had Azaleas, Andromeda, Mahonia, daffodils and Hyacinths.

Carmel Hamlet, NY

Latitude: 41.4 Longitude: -73.7

Observed by: million
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