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Monarch butterfly
Monarch Butterfly
 The Monarch butterfly is a stunning species with
many people following them during their lives. They
exhibit a certain beauty throughout all of their life
stages and their migration is fascinating to most
everyone that studies them.
 The fact that their numbers are decreasing has
scientists, gardeners, and wildlife enthusiasts
concerned and looking for ways to preserve these
amazing creatures.
Monarch Butterfly
Scientific Classification
Kingdom : : Animalia
Phylum : : Arthropoda
Class : : Insecta
Order : : Lepidoptera
Family : : Nymphalidae
Genus : : Danaus
Species : : D. Plexippus
Monarch Butterfly Migration
 Guinness world record – 2880 Miles

“A tagged male monarch, released by Donald A.

Davis (Canada) at Presquile Provincial Park near
brighton, Ontario, Canada, on september 10, 1989,
was recaptured on april 8, 1989 in austin texas,
U.S.A., traveling an estimated 2880 miles, making
this the World’s Longest Butterfly Migration.
 Monarch Butterfly Can Produce Four Or Five
Generations each year. The first three or four
generations live up to six weeks, hatching in spring
and dying in fall when the weather starts to turn cold.
The migrating generation lives for six to eight
months. They hatch in the fall, migrate to a warmer
climate, hibernate, then start a new first generation in
the spring time.
Identifying Monarch Butterflies

Large, no tails Monarch

Above and Below:
Orange with black lined
veins; Black border with
small white spots;
Hind wings have no
Viceroy
Horizontal bar crossing
the veins
(as in viceroy)
Identifying Female And Male Butterfly

Female Butterfly Male Butterfly

 Thick Vein Pigmentation. Thin Vein Pigmentation.

No hind wing pouches. Swollen pouches on the
hind wings.
 EGG
 Egg (3-4 days) The eggs hatch
about four days after they laid.
Approximate dimensions: 1.2mm high;
0.9mm wide.

 Each mother has roughly 200

eggs to deposit, and optimally,
the eggs should be laid separately,
among a number of milkweed plants,
as a protection against sibling
cannibalism
 LARVA (CATERPILLAR)
 Larva(Caterpillar; 10-14 days) it
Is during this stage that monarchs
do all of their growing. They begin
life by eating their eggshell, and
then move on to the plant on which
they where laid.
 PUPA(CHRYSALIS)
 Pupa (Chrysalis; 10-14 days) During the pupal stage the
transformation from larva to adult is complete. Pupae are
much less mobile than larvae adults, but they often exhibit
sudden movements if they are disturbed. Like other
butterflies, Monarch pupae are well camouflaged, since they
have no other means of defence against predators.
 ADULT (BUTTERFLY)
 They emerge as beautifully
colored, black-orange-and-white
adults. The colorful pattern makes
monarchs easy to identify. The
distinctive pattern warns predators
that the insect are foul tasting and
poisonous.
 The primary job of the adult stage
is to reproduce to mate and lay
the eggs that will become the next
generation
 FOOD FOR CATERPILLARS
 Although the adult feeds on vast range of
plants, the caterpillar depends solely on
milkweed
 Since the plant’s milky essence, its latex, is
full of glycosides that are poisonous to other
animals, the milkweed-sated monarchs are
unpalatable to most predators
 FOOD FOR BUTTERFLIES

 Nectar from flowers, which is about

20% sugar, provides most of their
adult food. Monarchs are not very
picky about the source of their nectar,
and will visit many different flowers.
 Pollinators – Monarch butterfly
A dangerous Beauty
More than beautiful, monarch butterflies contribute to health to of
our planet. While feeding nectar, they pollinate many types of wild
flowers.
Plant Pollination
Adult butterflies drink nectar from blossoms on flowering
plants. Butterflies use a long proboscis to reach deep into
the bloom to get at the nectar. Like bees and other
pollinators, butterflies pick up pollen while they sip a
flower’s nectar. Once they’re off to another plant, the
pollen goes with them, helping to pollinate the plant
species. About one third of the food people eat depends on
the work of pollinators such as butterflies.
Monarchs experience significant threats
to their survival
 Loss of milkweed plants
Although monarchs feed on the nectar of many flowers,
they lay their eggs only on certain types of milkweed
plants. Unfortunately, milkweeds are often eradicated as
noxious weeds. Urbanization, industrialized, large-scale
farms, and drought conditions have also resulted in
significant plant loss.
 Loss of winter habitat
The butterflies' winter habitat in Mexico and California is
rapidly shrinking due to deforestation, harsh weather,
development and other disruptions. Because all monarchs
gather in only a few locations, the overall population is at
risk.
Monarchs experience significant
threats to their survival
 Climate Change
Especially during the last decade, changes in
climate have resulted in more out-of-season storms,
severe temperature drops and excessive rain. The
combination of both wet and cold is deadly and has
resulted in the deaths of hundreds of millions of
butterflies.
Factors that kill monarch butterfly
 Parasite
Tachinid flies-These parasitic flies lay tiny eggs on
monarch caterpillars.
The hatching maggots
burrow inside the
caterpillar and feed from
the inside out, eventually
killing it.
Bacillus thuringiensis (BT)
 This naturally-occurring bacteria is used in
powders and sprays to protect food crops. It has
become a widely used pest management tool to
control the spread of gypsy moth caterpillars in
spring, with all other caterpillars (including
monarchs) becoming collateral damage.
 When ingested, BT ruptures the gut lining of
monarch caterpillars. The irritated caterpillar stops
eating and will die within a few days.
Monarch butterflies and Bt corn
 In 1999, researchers at Cornell University did a
preliminary lab study on the effects of Bt corn pollen
on monarch caterpillars. The lead researcher, Dr. John
Losey, sent a description of the study to the editors of
the science journal Nature (Volume 399, 20 May 1999,
page 214).
 In Dr. Losey's study, monarch caterpillars in a
laboratory were fed milkweed leaves that had been
dusted with pollen from Bt corn. This was done
because wind-borne corn pollen can settle on the leaves
of milkweed plants, and milkweed is all that monarch
caterpillars eat.
Milkweed often grows in meadows or untilled fields and can be found in
or near corn fields. Dr. Losey wanted to determine whether pollen
from Bt corn would affect monarch caterpillars. His study found that " …
larvae of the monarch butterfly on milkweed leaves dusted with
transgenic Bt-corn pollen ate less, grew more slowly, and suffered higher
mortality than those fed leaves dusted with untransformed corn pollen or
leaves without pollen.“
Some people understood the results of the lab study to mean
that Bt corn harms monarch caterpillars, but other scientists pointed out
that the study may not accurately reflect what would happen in a field
of Bt corn.
• There were higher amounts of Bt pollen on the milkweed leaves in
the lab than there would be found in a field;
• In the lab, caterpillars were limited to eating only leaves covered in
corn pollen, whereas in a field, caterpillars may be able to avoid
pollen-coated leaves.
As a result of Dr. Losey's findings, some scientists decided to
combine their research on this topic and produced a large
body of peer-reviewed work on monarch butterflies
and Bt corn, which was published in the Proceedings of the
National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). These studies
concluded that monarch butterflies exposed to Bt corn in the
environment are not subjected to any significant risk.
The
End