Stalking the Wild Lepidoptera

by Margot McMillen
photography by Cliff White

Kids in Lee's Summit take part in an international monarch butterfly research project.

Keeping written records of the monarch's eating and flying habits is just one part of the project.

Jason sees it first, but Megan is right behind him. "Get it! Get it!" screams Lauren.

The three kids break into a run, their nets waving like banners. Suddenly, the kids, nets and lepidoptera disappear in a ditch.

Someone yells, "Jason got it!"

"Did it survive?"

"Is it a monarch?"

Catching a black and orange Danaus plexippus-or monarch butterfly-is harder than it looks. But in late September, kids all over the Lee's Summit School District are hot on the trail.

Members of Kelly Gillespie's fifth-grade class at Prairie View Elementary School chase, capture, measure, evaluate, record, tag and release monarch butterflies as they migrate to winter quarters.

When the students catch a monarch, they tag its wing with a tiny numbered sticker and record data, such as gender and condition. Then they release it, letting it take off from a finger.

On this day, they tag six or seven, then meet with lepidopterist Liz Goehring, a guest speaker and graduate student from the University of Minnesota, for discussion and a slide show.

After three years of studying the subject, the students have more questions than answers. Looking at a chrysalis hanging in the classroom, Megan observes, "It's so pretty. It's like this green pearl and it's got this gold . . ."

"Could the gold be where they thread themselves up?" asks Jason.

"Sort of like glue?" asks Tyler.

"Well, that's an idea," Ms. Goehring says, and recommends a book for them to read. "There's so much we don't know," she adds. "The more we learn, the more we want to find out."

The travels of monarch butterflies east of the Rocky Mountains have been tracked since 1940, when Fred Urquart of Canada glued the first tiny tag to a 2-inch wing. Monarchs are the only known migrating butterfly. Generations of monarchs make an incredible 2,000-mile journey from as far north as southern Canada to as far south as Mexico, powered by stops for nectar along the way.

How many stops do they make? How far do they fly each day? Answers to some of these questions may come from studying monarchs that have been tagged in Missouri. In 1995, volunteers in the Midwest tagged 17,000 monarchs. Fifty-nine were recovered, but the taggers had complete data on only 13. The project leaders hope that every year, more will be tagged, the record-keeping will get better and more butterflies will be recovered on their travels.

The Lee's Summit School District joined the research team in 1995 through a national program called Monarch Watch. They received a boost with a grant from the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education. With the grant, the district has been able to buy equipment and butterfly eggs for the classrooms to hatch.

Third-graders in 12 schools begin their Monarch Watch experience when older kids show them how to manage nets, hold the wings gently for tagging and make temporary cages for the butterflies. The older students, participants in the district's gifted program, also teach the younger ones about the insect life cycle, beginning when a female returning from winter in Mexico lays her eggs on a milkweed plant somewhere in North America. The eggs hatch out as caterpillars that eat milkweed leaves.

Milkweed is the perfect food for a monarch caterpillar. It provides nourishment and also contains toxins called glycosides which make the butterfly taste bad to predators. Students learned that if farmers and lawn loving suburbanites mow or poison milkweed plants, we may lose the monarch butterfly.

A monarch caterpillar munches on milkweed for 14 days, then turns into a chrysalis. The chrysalis is shiny pale green with gold spots and hangs like an over-sized jewel on the milkweed for 12 days until the butterfly emerges.

Students identify, capture, measure, evaluate, tag and release the monarchs. Their records become part of the national monarch database.

So far, this resembles the life cycles of many other butterflies and moths. Soon after a Danaus plexippus spreads its orange and black wings, however, it begins a remarkable journey north.

Riding the breeze, it feeds on nectar and lays eggs-up to 700 eggs-along the way. When the second generation hatches out, it flies even farther north toward the Great Lakes, also laying eggs as it goes. A third generation, born around the Great Lakes, heads to the East Coast.

When these eggs hatch, the East Coast generation rides the breezes south back to Mexico. Snacking on nectar along the way, the butterflies weigh more when they arrive than when they left their northern homes.

Researchers believe that in three or four generations, the butterflies make a big circle across the eastern half of Canada and the United States. But they're not sure how each butterfly generation knows which direction to go. Experts wonder if the butterflies follow magnetic fields with a built-in compass.

Once they reach the Mexico overwintering grounds, the butterflies cling to trees. Hundreds of millions of them hang on branches in a state of torpor, or hibernation. They arrange themselves so thickly that trees look like they are draped in a thick, orange moss, every surface covered with the swarm. Branches break off under the weight.

The butterflies rest in Mexico through November, December, January and February. They leave in mid-March to go north, beginning the cycle again. Many monarchs fly across Missouri, laying eggs on milkweed plants and sipping nectar from flowers. And that's where Prairie View School comes in.

Butterflies find milkweed in flower gardens, conservation lands and untended lots and ditches. At Prairie View School, kids asked the maintenance crew to leave a drainage ditch unmowed so the monarchs could have milkweed and nectar sources. Along with monarchs, there are a healthy number of other insects in the ditch, including butterflies called red admirals, painted ladies and sulfurs, and various spiders, beetles and crickets.

In spring, the students will experiment to see which kind of milkweed monarch caterpillars prefer. They will keep caterpillars in two cages and feed a different kind of milkweed to each. By observing and weighing the caterpillars, they will look for a difference between the groups. The students will report back to Monarch Watch, hoping that they can help uncover the mysteries of the monarch migration.

If you find a tagged butterfly, or want to learn more about Monarch Watch, call 888-TAGGING, or 785/864-4441. Visit their home page at < http://www. monarchwatch.org/>

Missouri to Texas

In November 1997, Lee's Summit teacher Pam Pollard learned that a butterfly she had raised, tagged and released had been recovered. The recovery was important because people weren't sure if home-raised butterflies would know how to migrate.

"It was tagged PX011," explains Pam. "She was raised in butter tubs, then clear plastic aquariums in my kitchen bay window. She was fed a fresh milkweed leaf or two each morning and evening. She was tagged on September 7, 1997, in Independence and released."

In October, PX011 was recovered in Austin, Texas.

"Raised monarchs do indeed migrate and tags are working well," says Pam. "PX011 traveled 635 miles in 42 days!"

How to help Danaus plexippus

Everyone with a little plot of sunshine can help butterflies-they even come to potted plants on the patio.

p Butterflies depend on nectar for food. Because some cultivated plants have been developed for showy blooms rather than nectar, you'll have the best chance of attracting butterflies by planting old-fashioned, native varieties of plants, such as phlox, ox-eye daisies, ageratum, blazing star, coreopsis and spearmint. Try to have something in bloom at all times so there is always nectar available.

• Find a sunny site that is out of the wind.
• Place a few rocks near the plants for butterfly resting spots.
• Don't use insecticides. Insecticides kill butterflies.

The Missouri Department of Conservation publishes a booklet called "Butterfly Gardening and Conservation" which lists Missouri butterflies and their favorite plants. To order, write:

"Butterfly Gardening and Conservation"
Missouri Department of Conservation
P.O. Box 180
Jefferson City 65102 0180.