Love Monarch Butterflies? From Egg to Adult in Just a Month–Here are 5 Things to Know if You Want to Help Them
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Many of us love butterflies and the monarch butterfly, with its gorgeous orange and black wings, is among the most recognizable. Did you know the monarch, and many other butterflies goes from a tiny egg to an adult butterfly in just about a month or that many, like the monarch have very specific food plants? You may have read that monarchs are in trouble, their numbers declining and that recently they were added to the endangered species list. This is alarming, but guess what? There are things that every single person can do to help the monarchs.
Here are 5 things to know about monarch butterflies.
Female monarch butterflies will lay their eggs on only one kind of plant–the milkweed, but luckily, there are many varieties of milkweed to choose from.
To help the monarchs, choose one of those kinds that is native to where you live.
Common milkweed (Asclepias Syriac)Butterfly weed (Asclepias tuberosa)Swamp milkweed (Asclepias incarnata)
For instance, here in NC there are more than 10 species of native milkweed, including common, swamp, poke, whorled, purple, and butterfly weed. It is important to choose a native species--and even if the only one you can find at your local nursery is tropical milkweed (Asclepias curassavica), give that a pass as studies have shown that one of the cues that tells monarchs it’s time to migrate is the leaves of the milkweed beginning to turn brown and die back in the fall. Tropical milkweed, especially when grown in southern states, lasts well into the fall and even winter. In addition, monarchs can become infected with something called Ophryocystis elektroscirrha, or thankfully! OE for short. OE is a protozoan parasite that survives in the environment as spores and can be found on the leaves of milkweed plants. Because tropical milkweed doesn’t die back, or takes longer to die back, this allows a buildup of these OE spores, which are eaten by the monarch caterpillar and once inside the caterpillar’s body, stay there and do great damage to that butterfly, but can also spread to other butterflies through spores on an adult’s wings. You can learn more about this through Project Monarch Health or on the Xerces Society website.
2. Monarch eggs are tiny and resemble textured pearls. Under a microscope they are beautiful! Usually a female will lay only one egg per plant, giving her offspring plenty of chance to survive and develop into a caterpillar and then an adult.
See the monarch egg beside the dime. It is tiny!A monarch egg looks like a mini pearl.See how tiny it is beside a finger!The tip of the egg turns black just before the caterpillar emerges.A tiny first-instar monarch caterpillar.
The first meal of the caterpillar is usually its eggshell. Then it moves on to eating milkweed leaves. The caterpillar will grow 2000% in just two weeks!!!
A tiny monarch caterpillar on a milkweed leaf.A growing monarch caterpillar on milkweed.A monarch caterpillar big enough to make its chrysalis.
3. To help the monarch butterfly and other pollinators, don’t use any pesticides, herbicides or other chemicals in your yard or garden! A recent study found that many, many milkweed and other pollinator friendly plants from many nurseries across the US contained harmful amounts of pesticides–even when they were labeled as safe for wildlife. This is especially disturbing to those of us who are planting for the monarchs and want to help them. As a consumer, what can you do to ensure the plants you are adding to your garden are safe for butterflies and other insects? Ask questions and buy from a local source that grows their plants themselves. This is super important! It is much better to pay a few extra cents to a local farm or nursery that will sell you plants safe for monarchs to eat, rather than buy from a big, nursery where you don’t know exactly what the plant was treated with. Don’t be afraid to ask your nursery whether the plants were treated with chemicals. You can read more about what Xerces has to say about finding pesticide-free plants for your garden.
If you live in western NC, there is one more plant sales coming up where you can buy milkweed and other native perennials. It is Saturday, September 24, 11 AM – 3 PM Mountain Monarch Festival (FREE!)
Gorges State Park, 976 Grassy Ridge Road, Sapphire, NC
A monarch stops in a field of goldenrod on its way to MexicoGoldenrod and ironweed bloom in fall.
4. Don’t stop at planting milkweed! Plant many native plants including flowers that bloom in the fall when the monarchs are coming back through on their way to Mexico. Migrating butterflies need nectar to fuel their journey. Flowers like goldenrod, ironweed, blue mist flowers, asters and others can supply monarchs with the fuel they need for their long journeys. Ask at your local nursery to learn what’s blooming in your area in the fall where you live. Then buy it and plant it!
5. Share what you know with your family and friends and get them to join you in planting milkweed and other native plants. Every person can make a difference! Just think how amazing it would be if on every street in every town in every state in the United States there were way stations for migrating monarchs where they could drink nectar from safe, chemical-free plants. We can make a huge difference. Everyone needs to plant milkweed!
One more thing before you go: I know some of you are local to western NC and may enjoy an upcoming program happening this week at Bullington Gardens about Monarch Butterflies. It features two incredible women who have dedicated their lives to sharing their knowledge with others and educating people about monarchs —one all the way from Mexico and one from right here in western NC. Both will be talking about the lifecycle of the monarch butterfly and its amazing migration from North America to Mexico. If you’re in town, it shouldn’t be missed!
A monarch butterfly in a field in NCTrees in Mexico wallpapered with Monarchs!
Estela Romero, monarch educator and journalist who works in the overwintering sanctuaries near her home in Angangueo, Michoacán and Kim Bailey, local educator and farmer/owner of Milkweed Meadows Farm in Fruitland, NC will present up-close and personal views of the monarch’s remarkable life cycle and epic migration. Estela and Kim will share their in-depth knowledge of these winged wonders on the journey from Mexico to NC and back again. Also learn how to invite monarchs into your own garden by growing milkweed and planting a succession of nectar-producing native flowers throughout spring, summer, and fall.
Based in Angangueo, Mexico, Estela Romero serves as a local reporter for the Journey North citizen science and education program. In this role, she involves children from her local community in reporting the monarchs’ fall arrival, sending news about the monarchs’ overwintering season and announcing the butterflies’ departure for spring migration in March. During the winter, Estela also coordinates the Mexican side of the Symbolic Monarch Migration, a program uniting children across North America through the migration of paper ambassador butterflies. Each fall, over 25,000 students in Canada and the USA create symbolic monarch butterflies and send them to children to Mexico. Estela delivers these butterflies while presenting environmental education programs in the schools surrounding the monarch overwintering sanctuaries. In the early 1970s, Estela was a child living in Angangueo when the monarch overwintering sites were first “discovered” by the rest of the world. Her family knew about the monarchs for many generations prior to this and also has a long history of working with the first American scientists who came to Mexico to study the monarchs.
An avid wildlife habitat gardener and environmental educator for over 25 years, farmer Kim Bailey has a true passion for pollinators. Kim first visited the monarch butterfly overwintering sanctuaries in Mexico in 2002 and has co-led several trips to the area since then. She now enjoys growing wildflowers, fruits, and vegetables while learning more about the pollinators that also make their home at her farm, Milkweed Meadows, in Fruitland, NC. Milkweed Meadows is a 5th generation family farm located on 100 acres surrounding the confluence of Clear Creek, Kyles Creek, and Henderson Creek. Its grassy “bottoms” once nourished cows that produced milk sold to Biltmore Dairy Farms in Asheville. Today, the meadows are yielding milk of a different kind — milkweed plants to help sustain monarch butterflies.
A monarch chrysalis before the butterfly emerges.A newly emerged monarch!The monarch will zip its proboscis together and pump blood into its wings before flying off!
What a beautiful post.