The Monarch are coming to ARGENTINA...

[ALE777]

dear people of this forum
With proud I want to communicate that the Monarch are in my garden!!! The place of my garden is in Buenos Aires, Argentina, the spring has started here, in South America, so the long long travel the monarchs has maked is finished!!! they has put the eggs in the flowers, and in few weeks the Monarchs will FLY!!! I am so happy to write here to you...
attach a photo of the yellow eggs...
I hope you will feel happy to know that here are a "Monarch guard" too!!!

I promise to upload photos of the early Monarchs when will born...

[Mona Miller]

I'm sorry to tell you that these are aphids.
http://www.mymonarchguide.com/2007/08/t ... hings.html
The orange ones are active, the dark ones have been parasitized by wasp. Sorry, these are not Monarch eggs.

http://www.mymonarchguide.com/2008/08/l ... stars.html
Monarchs usually lay one creamy looking egg on the underside of the leaf.

[Morti]

Hi Ale, I'm also in Argentina, near Buenos Aires.

Indeed, those in the photo are loads and loads of aphids — the same yellow aphids that I get on my milkweeds, BTW!
However, you might find monarch eggs on your milkweed plants some day. But they would be eggs from a Southern Monarch (Danaus erippus), which is a South American species, and not from its northern cousin Danaus plexippus. Northern monarchs, as far as I know, never reach Argentina.
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[Argentine Spanish version]
Hola Ale, yo también soy de Argentina, cerca de Buenos Aires.

Efectivamente, lo que se ve en la foto son montones de pulgones... ¡los mismos pulgones amarillos que aparecen en mis asclepias, dicho sea de paso!
Sin embargo, puede que un día encuentres huevitos de mariposa monarca en tus asclepias. Pero en ese caso serían de la especie sureña de monarca (Danaus erippus), que es nativa de acá, y no de su prima norteña, Danaus plexippus. Estas últimas, que yo sepa, nunca llegan a Argentina.

[Mona Miller]

Also, Queens:
http://www.butterfliesandmoths.org/spec ... s-gilippus

http://newswatch.nationalgeographic.com ... ed-advice/
Monarch Butterflies: Miles to Go Before They Sleep (and Lay Eggs)

[Morti]

(Sorry, I can't quote using BBCode since it's been disabled, apparently.)

***Mona Miller said: "Also, Queens..."***
Yup. :) In Buenos Aires province, what seems to be a Southern Monarch egg could de also a Queen's, or even a Tropical Queen's (Danaus eresimus) egg. But over here monarchs are common in urban and suburban gardens, while Queens and Tropical Queens are rare. So an egg on a cultivated milkweed plant is more likely to be a monarch egg than anything else.

***Mona Miller said: "Monarch Butterflies: Miles to Go Before They Sleep (and Lay Eggs)"***
Great article, I'm bookmarking it! :)

It's true that the migration habits of Southern Monarchs are still a mystery. They do migrate, but (to my best knowledge; I haven't looked up the subject lately) nobody has published a paper showing their migration patterns yet.

This bit of the article that caught my attention, though...
"In North America, monarchs exploit approximately 120 species of Asclepias milkweeds as larval host plants, but in South America monarchs only have access to six or perhaps eight species of Asclepias."

I think in the Southern Cone of South America (that is, roughly from Bolivia to the southernmost tip of the continent) there are about ten species of Asclepias... but there's also the fact that Southern Monarch caterpillars do not feed just on those. They also eat other plants, like Oxypetalum sp., and possibly also Araujia sp.
And, according to the plant list at the Darwinion Institute website ( http://www2.darwin.edu.ar/Proyectos/Flo ... sp?Letra=O ), the Southern Cone alone has 78 Oxypetalum species. That would mean much more salad for monarch caterpillars. :)

[Paul Cherubini]

In Australia and New Zealand, only one introduced species of milkweed exists at temperate latitudes (Asclepias fruticosa), but there is enough of it to keep the monarch abundant like this:
http://www.monarch.org.nz/monarch/2011/ ... nd-nelson/

[milkweedman]

In New Zealand there are several species of milkweed besides A. Fruticosa and A. physocarpa. We also have A.Curassavica, Incarnata, syriaca, and speciosa and a couple of others. Admitedly they are all introduced species that are only cultivated at the home garden level and are not widespread. We also have Araujia serifera which is a weed here also.