Monday, August 1, 2022

Monarch Butterfly (Searsport, Maine)

Danaus plexippus

We started seeing Monarchs here over the last couple of days. Yesterday while we were taking our morning walk on the beach, we saw a Monarch being chased by a Merlin. As agile as the little falcon was, the butterfly still got away!

The Monarch is one of the most familiar of the North American butterflies and was the first butterfly to have its genome sequenced. There are 3 species of monarch, with six recognized sub-species.

They feed on milkweed (exclusively as caterpillars) but aren’t particularly good at pollinating them. Because they eat milkweed and concentrate the toxins from the plants in their bodies, they are not especially palatable to most predators.

Monarchs have four life stages (egg, larva, pupa, and adult). The adults are 3.5 to 4 inches across, with males maturing slightly larger than females. The adults migrate thousands of miles in the winter.