Monarch butterflies need our help

Looking at the life history of the monarch butterfly in the accompanying montage one can see what changes and conditions they have to go through to maintain their place in nature.

However, those are only part of what happens to the butterfly - to achieve this miraculous work there is the irreplaceable need for only one plant the caterpillar can eat: milkweed. Then, after the caterpillar metamorphoses into a butterfly, other flowering plants are necessary for nectaring. This story is about how to ensure that milkweed and wildflowers will always be there for the butterfly's survival, by creating monarch way-stations.

Being tropical butterflies, monarchs must have a way to survive our cold winters. To do this they migrate south to spend time closer to the equator - the only North American butterfly to do so. The eastern and central U.S. monarchs head for Mexico to spend winter in towering firs, while western populations find the warmth they need along the coastal parts of central and southern California.

The Mexican wintering habitat is shrinking due to illegal logging. In the U.S., habitat for food plants are vanishing due to changing land uses. The western population's wintering habitat along the California coast is capable of supporting a lot of monarchs, but the habitat for milkweed and nectaring plants when they head back north is getting more difficult to find.

The last generation of the summer, monarchs have no interest in mating, only in building fat reserves that will be their survival food once they arrive at their winter quarters. After their winter stay (which is not hibernation, as they are awake all winter, which lasts for five months), the sun reaches that spot in the sky that makes days longer. A biological trigger creates the urge to mate again. As they start north, they will mate at the first milkweed patch they come to, lay eggs and die.

A female lays hundreds of single eggs on the underside of the milkweed leaves. After three to five days, the eggs hatch, and the tiny larva (caterpillar) will begin to feed on the leaves. As it grows the larva will get too big for its britches, shed the old skin and begin the next instar toward becoming a pupa.

Finally, after the larvae have grown to a little over an inch long (about half the size of a human's little finger) - a process that takes 10 to 14 days and a lot of milkweed - they're ready to pupate.

The caterpillar(s) - in a prepupal "J" shape - with a silken thread on the end of it's abdomen will attach itself to the bottom of a horizontal twig before shedding their skin for the last time. In the photo above you can see the remains of the outer skin hanging on the pupal case.

The pupa slowly becomes a butterfly, the outer skin has space for the new, three-segment body, slender jointed legs, four wings, segmented eyes, an entirely different eating device, breathing organs and the ability to reproduce.

When the process of metamorphosis is completed and the new creature - an adult monarch - is ready to begin its life, the chrysalid splits open and the adult insect steps out into the air. Its wings are soft and misshapen from being stuffed in the solid chrysalis and must be pumped up with body fluids and harden.

When that process is finished and the coiled mouthpiece that acts like a straw is prepared for feeding, the butterfly takes wing and begins to explore its new world. Scents and colors from flowers are discovered by the insect's antennae and multifaceted eyes and the butterfly has its first taste of nectar. It then, by some unknown process of navigation, continues north to it's summer home, but stopping along the way to breed new travelers - up to five generations.

It is at this point that the new butterfly will be capable of surviving IF it has feeding and reproductive plants and habitat, which we can - and must -supply with monarch way-stations.

They can be created by planting milkweed seeds or rhizomes, and planting native wildflower seeds. It's as easy as that. Visit http://www.monarchwatch.org/waystations/ for more instructions, and/or contact me: [email protected] for local supplies of milkweed seeds, rhizomes, and native wildflower plants.