After last week’s post about vision, let’s see what the world looks like in black and white.
What do you think?
Category: butterflies (Page 8 of 43)
Bug of the Week is a bit late for a good reason. I had a post all queued up and then a monarch butterfly flew by.
Not just any monarch butterfly. Do you notice anything unusual about it?
What about now?
This monarch is extremely skittish. It won’t let me close. See it yet?
This is the best I could do before it flew away. On it’s hind wing is a circular paper tag. This is a tagged monarch!
Why is it tagged? People have been tagging monarchs to learn more about the their migration. You can learn more about the tagging program at Monarch Watch.
Wish I could have read the number and found out where it was from.
~~~~~
Want to discover more about monarchs and their migrations? Check out the new middle grade book The Monarchs Are Missing: A Butterfly Mystery by Rebecca E. Hirsch. It was nominated for a 2018 Cybils Award.
- Increase in herbicide use killing their milkweed food plants.
- Decrease in fall wildflowers that supply food for their long migration flights.
- Planting tropical milkweeds, which encourages the monarchs to overwinter in Southern states, and thus increases the spread of a disease.
- Changes in weather conditions in Texas in the spring.
To counteract the bad news, Hirsch also suggests some small changes that could make a big difference, like planting native milkweeds and avoiding pesticide use. She also encourages kids to participate in any one of a number of different citizen scientist projects for monarchs.
The Monarchs are Missing is part scientific mystery and part tribute to an amazing insect. It is a great choice for kids interested in nature and particularly in butterflies.
Age Range: 8 – 12 years
Publisher: Millbrook Pr (January 1, 2018)
ISBN-10: 1512452505
ISBN-13: 978-1512452501
It will soon be part of our growing list of children’s books about butterflies and moths at Science Books for Kids.
Disclosure: This book was provided by our local library. Also, I am an affiliate with Amazon so I can provide you with cover images and links to more information about books and products. As you probably are aware, if you click through the highlighted title link and purchase a product, I will receive a very small commission, at no extra cost to you. Any proceeds help defray the costs of hosting and maintaining this website.
After I wrote last week’s post about insects gathering nectar and pollen from a flowering wolfberry plant, I visited the plant once more.
It looked quite different. Rather than one or two snout butterflies here and there, there were over thirty fluttering around.
A closer view…
Can you see the long snout that gives them their common name?
The adult butterflies were only sipping nectar from the wolfberry flowers and it is not a host for them. Snouts lay their eggs on hackberry trees (Celtis sp.)
The caterpillars that hatch from the eggs are green. Butterflies and Moths of North America website has some photographs of the caterpillars. When they are done feeding, they form chrysalids that are a similar green color.
Today, the wolfberry has finished flowering. I wonder where the snout butterflies are now.
For more information, see Roberta Gibson Writes.