Costa Rican Monarchs

[MonarchsForever]

I raise Monarchs, a lot of Monarchs. The Monarchs in Costa Rica behave quite
differently then their North American kin. The larva of Costa Rican Monarchs
are aggressively cannibalistic unlike Northern Monarchs. You will never, and
I mean never find two larva on the same plant. Much like the Helicoides of
the area. This is just what I've seen. David Bohlken

----- Original Message -----
From: Chris J. Durden <drdn at mail.utexas.edu>
To: <leps-l at lists.yale.edu>
Sent: Sunday, February 17, 2002 5:44 PM
Subject: Re: [leps-talk] Monarch question


> At 12:45 PM 2/17/2002 -0800, you wrote:
> >Woody Woods wrote:
> > >
> > > Regarding heritability of migratory strategies, it might be worth
> > mentioning
> > > that there are Monarchs in Costa Rica that are considered a separate
> > > subspecies, Danaus plexippus megalippe, thought by Vane-Wright and
> > Ackery not
> > > to interbreed with D. plexippus plexippus. I must say that they are
> > > indistinguishable to me even with the subtle markers these authors
mention,
> > > though I am no expert there.
> >
> >Chris Durden has suggested there are subtle phenotypic differences
between
> >the year round breeding populations of monarchs that exist in the
lowlands of
> >Mexico and the migratory monarchs of the northern USA and Canada.
> >
> >One difference he has noted is that the former has white apical spots
> >near the tips of the forewings whereas the latter has consistently orange
> >apical spots.
> >
> >However, I have found that very roughly 1 in every 200 migratory monarchs
> >from the northern USA also has the white apical spots.  For example, all
three
> >monarchs in the picture below were collected in Iowa in September during
> >the fall migration from overnight aggregation sites:
> >
> >http://www.saber.net/~monarch/apical.jpg
> >
> >Paul Cherubini
>
> Paul,
>
> 1:200 seems high. I do not find them in Central Texas and I am always
looking.
>     On your Iowa specimens notice the shorter wing apex on the white spot
> individuals. The wing tips are even shorter in lowland individuals I have
> seen from Mexico. I suspect that your Iowa white-spot individuals may be
> hybrid offspring of "typical" X "lowland", from matings where the two
occur
> together in winter on the Gulf Coast of Tamaulipas and Veracruz.
>     Do you ever find the white spot phenotype in California. Klots
> mentioned that they occur rarely on the East Coast as far North as New
Jersey.
>     The material I have seen from Australia is "typical", not "lowland".
> Has anyone seen the white spot phenotype in any of the Pacific Island
> populations, Australia or New Zealand. Does anyone know how many millions
> of individuals there may be in these exotic introduced populations.
> ...................Chris Durden
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
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