A search on the wing tag number will at least bring up the Monarch Larva Monitoring Project website, and going from there you can also find the latitude and longitude of the site 2519 and find it on their map. The rest of the number is the number of the individual on which is kept the same data as Monarch Watch wants from the people who use their tags--and I use both. They serve different purposes.
Yes, I also measure 1/2 wingspan too, and record that, in addition to any other notes on remarkable monarchs. I keep notes on two visible genetic markers: white spot and gray streak. There exists no entomological term (that I can find, anyway) for the cell on the forewing that these markers occur, but they're in the same cell in the forewing usually hidden by the hind wing as illustrated in the above picture. Needless to say, because the particular white dot is very visible in the pictures other people take of monarchs, I collect more location information on those than on the gray streaks.
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| Color of wing tag indicates that this butterfly is last year's. |
This year an unusual opportunity to study a breeding case presented itself, in which a genetically defective male mated with an OE infected female in captivity. Not intended, but it happened, so I saved all the eggs, hatched them, to see what sort of offspring would be produced, and in this regard this post will be an ongoing work in progress because caterpillars are still eating. At this point I have on hand 11 chrysalides showing no symptoms of OE and while they were caterpillars, showed no genetic anomalies. The same is true of the remaining caterpillars.
What happened is that only one chrysalis showed signs of OE infection and that was a heavy infection...but...it was the second born. The firstborn looks perfect. Another interesting development is that the mother's lady parts weren't working right so even though I provided a potted Silky Gold Tropical milkweed for her to lay eggs on (she had no choice on host plant), the eggs she tried to lay didn't stick and dropped to the soil, wherefrom I carefully retrieved her eggs, and then put in a coffee filter liner at the base of the milkweed to catch subsequent eggs with. Therefore hatchlings had no kind of bonding, even remotely, with the host plant.
Each egg was placed in a sealed condiment cup with one Honeyvine leaf in each. Some hatchlings took right to it but others walked around in search of food. I then put a small leaf of Showy milkweed in those, and again, some took to it and some didn't recognize that as food either.
When I put in a Tropical leaf, they took right to it.
The professional scientists have made a big issue of Tropical milkweed as an undesirable non-native, but here's a reminder that eucalyptus isn't native either and yet it's considered to be an important west coast tree for monarch overwintering. Yes, monarchs adapt, but so do all other creatures to all other changes in their habitats and environments. This is not news. But some, without sufficient basis, blame Tropical as a cause of OE spread rather than being an accidental, merely coincidental, introduced element because OE was prevalent in the geographic areas it is found concentrated in before the introduction of Tropical...so has been my understanding.
When I started getting involved in monarchs a few years ago, I was just a casual observer until I discovered that I actually had milkweeds in the yard they were seeking, and I had no idea I had milkweeds because Honeyvine doesn't look like a typical milkweed. And yet monarchs here sought it out. I installed other types of milkweed to offer a choice, and discovered that monarchs can be choosy about host plants and this year I discovered that monarchs that chose Tropical weren't necessarily OE infected. There were monarchs that stuck with Showy exclusively, too. And as has been typical of late summer monarchs, they preferred Honeyvine. There's been an argument out there that late season Showy is of substandard quality, but that doesn't take into account the fact that late season is when Showy produces young shoots by rhizome, so that shoots THAT speculation down.
So--it's been appearing to me that monarch science is more speculation based on insufficient data than observation based. What data is collected doesn't paint an accurate picture of what's actually going on. Me, I'm making observations. I observe that what Monarch Watch monitors with its wing tag program is exclusively monarchs that go to Mexico to die. Re-migration isn't studied, and thus their typical tag recovery rate is around 1%.
Now then--enough for now; expect editings later.
=======================Oct 14=====================
Logging 2 pupation fails with the caterpillars that J'ed. Just as the skin split, they quit. However in terms of genetic malfunctions, I suspect that "birth order" has a lot of say in what happens. A male's sperm deposit goes only just so far and the lifetime is too short for multiple matings of the same couple.
=======================Oct 15=====================
Barely escaped a frost last night but tonight, under a freeze warning. I have 2 tagged monarchs waiting to be released when it gets warmer, and getting warmer is indeed in the forecast. A curse on all cold snaps.
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