Mutated Monarch Part 2

[alarick at my-deja.com]

Good Evening,
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  EE <great at sympatico.ca> wrote:
> Thanks to those of you who responded to my previous post about the
> deformed Monarch, or sport, in southern Ontario.
>
> I only raise eggs from the 'hood, and release all emergents. Just a
> nature nut!
>
> The Monarch eggs were collected around Aug. 8th from a vacant field
> across the train tracks from a golf course. They were kept in a newly
> built small outdoor enclosure that consisted of a frame made from
wooden
> 1x1's covered with screening material. They were fed on milkweed from
> the field. All of these caterpillars exhibited lolling behavior, some
of
> them seemed to have the hiccups, and most, in the later instars, were
> into head banging (no we weren't playing any heavy metal music!). They
> all pupated between Aug. 17-29.
>
> A 10th caterpillar  was from an egg that came in on some milkweed
around
> Aug. 25th and pupated last, around Sept. 4th or 5th on the can that
had
> held the milkweed (in floral foam to keep it fresh). It grew amazingly
> fast, ripping through the instars like nobody's business.
>
> The next of the original 9 tried to emerge on Sept. 15th. The lid of
the
> chrysalis popped open. The abdomen sticking out was green in colour.
> Instead of emerging, the butterfly wiggled a bit, but died within a
few
> hours. I was curious about it, so I removed it from the enclosure and
> cut the pupal case open. It looked more or less normal, except for the
> fact that it had extremely tiny wings (not much bigger than a
> housefly's). All the other chyrsalids hanging from the top of the
> enclosure had gone two tone green and green/black, and some of them
were
> dripping colourless fluid. I'm pretty sure they won't be emerging.
>
> On September 17th, the 10th caterpillar, the last to pupate, emerged.
It
> was a male with normal looking wings. This is my first time with
> Monarchs, so I don't know if the rest of the anatomy was completely
> normal or not. After 4 hours, he flapped off ... not incredibly
> vigorously ... but he did fly off.
>
> I've learned that most golf courses around here spray fungicides and
> imidacloprid (Merit). It's my understanding that the railway corridor
is
> not sprayed. I should also add that the first half of August was
> extremely windy here , with winds gusting from just about every
> direction ... so anything could have drifted into the yard (we're
> organic). Could the persistant pesticide or fungicide used to keep the
> greens mold free have caused the problem? Could it have been
pesticides
> from the lawn chem truck which was also around one afternoon spraying
a
> lawn a half a block away? It didn't smell like diazinon, but it did
> smell like pesticide.
>
> Any thoughts on what went wrong with the Monarchs?
>
> I was heartened to see the 6-12 Monarchs a day, all day, that came to
> nectar on wildflower slope in August. I haven't seen one for a few
days
> - I imagine they've all left by now.
>
> I also had Eastern Black Swallowtails on the go. The eggs were laid on
> fennel, dill and parsley in the herb bed. I transferred them to curly
> leaf parsley growing in pots and into an outdoor enclosure, this one
> made of a metal wire frame covered in cloth mesh. I've reused this
> enclosure for several years, and simply clean the metal and mesh with
> bleach solution after the spring emergents flutter away. When the
> pillars were ready to pupate I moved them to brand new individual
wooden
> meshed bug boxes (the kind they sell for kids to kill bugs in:-)). The
> first of the EBS to pupate emerged a perfectly beautiful female
specimen
> on Aug. 15th. The other 3 continued to pupate. It surprised me that
she
> emerged this seasons, because in my experience so far, any that pupate
> after the first of August diapause.
>
> I had a second batch of 5 eggs layed on the herbs really late in the
> season, on August 12th. One died in the first instar. Judging by the
> caterpillars' colouration and final size, they seemed to be from 3
> different females. One grew to be huge, but exhibited the head banging
> behavior, and died just as it should have been pupating. (I think this
> is the one that's sibling died in the first instar.) I found it
hanging
> upside down from a parsley stalk. The other 3 EBS caterpillars pupated
> successfully (I hope) within the first 10 days of September. I won't
> know what's up with the 7 EBS chrysalides till next May. The first
batch
> were pupating around the time that the Monarch eggs arrived, but the
> second batch were exposed to the same conditions as the Monarchs.
>
> Hope they're more successful than the Monarchs were.
>
> EE
>
>


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