no chrysalises

[tlundeen]

This is the third year that I have reared monarchs in my fifth grade classroom. For several years prior to that, we reared painted ladies.

This year none of my larvae made it to the chrysalis stage. We cleaned containers everyday, provided fresh milkweed. Containers weren't crowded. I collected milkweed from the road side which had not been sprayed...but I washed and dried it anyway.

Any insights would be appreciated....

tlundeen

[monarchrose]

I am so sorry to hear of this. How disappointing for the children. I suppose I have a few questions. Did you collect the eggs or larvae of the butterflies? When did they die... was it early on, or late in their development? What did their little bodies look like after they had died?

[tlundeen]

Thanks so much for your interest in helping us. The larvae were ordered from Monarch Watch. We were very pleased when they arrived because they looked so healthy. They were of various sizes---this pleased us because we knew that we would be able to observe their growth and development. They died at various times, but generally as they got to the stage where I thought they would be J-ing. They appeared to stop eating which also did not alarm me. After dying, their bodies still had reasonably good color but were slightly darkened. One larva lived for four weeks after we received them, but he did not appear to eat or produce droppings in the last 10 days or so.

We did have the experience of tagging monarchs which we caught in the wild. We also learned that 2 of the monarchs we tagged last year were recovered in El Rosario, Mexico. Since about 35% of my students are Hispanic, this has special meaning to us. The project is not a total loss. We hope to try to rear monarchs again in the spring, although we realize that these will not migrate.

Thanks so much for your interest...I have fellow teachers and parents asking me if I have found out what happened. It is nice to have a project which has generated so much interest.

[BEH]

This is the fourth year I have raised Monarchs in my classroom. None of the caterpillars I received from Monarch Watch made it to the chrysalis stage this year. Other teachers in my area had the same problem this year. I have tried to contact Monarh Watch by telephone and email to see if they can provide any insights, but I have not received any response to my questions.
I reared ten Monarchs from eggs I found at the end of August and we released them in September without a problem.
has this happened to you this year? Any insights into what the problem is?