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Contents:

1) Welcome!

2) Tagging Event this Weekend!

3) Status of the Monarch Population

4) Timing of the Migration

5) Tagging Monarchs

6) The Proboscis – Structure and Function

7) Festival of Butterflies a Success!

8) How to Unsubscribe from this Update

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1) Welcome to Monarch Watch's Update List!

You are receiving this email because you have provided Monarch Watch with your email address at some point and expressed interest in receiving updates from us. If you do not wish to receive these periodic (probably monthly) email updates or feel that you were subscribed in error, please see the unsubscribe information at the end of this message.

Have you somehow missed (or misplaced ;-) an update? Now you can find all of the updates archived online at

http://www.MonarchWatch.org/update

If you know someone that you think might be interested in receiving these email updates from Monarch Watch with monarch news, special announcements, tips on raising monarchs in your classroom, monarch tagging information and a whole lot more, please send them on over to

http://www.MonarchWatch.org/signup

to join our new Monarch-Watch-Update email list - it's easy!

Monarch Watch (http://www.MonarchWatch.org) is a not-for-profit educational outreach program based at the University of Kansas. We run a Monarch tagging program and offer Monarch Rearing Kits, Monarch Tagging Kits, and other educational/promotional materials that allow you to actively experience the monarch life cycle and its spectacular fall migration.If you have any questions, please feel free to contact us anytime!

Your friends at Monarch Watch
http://www.MonarchWatch.org
monarch@ku.edu

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2) Tagging Event this Weekend!

Once again, Monarch Watch and the Jayhawk Audubon Society will be sponsoring a Monarch butterfly tagging event at the Baker University Wetlands in Lawrence, KS. It will be held from 7:30 a.m. until 11:30 a.m. this Saturday (14 September 2002). The event is free and open to the public and no experience is necessary, so bring yourself, your kids (all ages), your friends, and your neighbors! If you have a net, bring that too, though Monarch Watch and JAS will provide the tags, nets, and any instruction you need. Last year, 325 participants tagged nearly 3,000 of the estimated 20,000 Monarchs present, and at least 85 of those tagged were recovered at the winter roost sites in Mexico!

Every year, tens to hundreds of thousands of Monarchs stop at the wetlands to refuel on the nectar from the ocean of yellow Bidens flowers, a fantastic sight in its own right, on their way south. Unfortunately, we expect fewer butterflies this year; however, there should be plenty to keep us busy! We will have check-in and information tables just inside the boardwalk entrance to the wetlands so you can arrive and leave whenever you please. The monarchs are usually roosting (sometimes in spectacular concentrations!) until around 8:30 a.m., at which point they begin foraging on the Bidens flowers around the boardwalk. The boardwalk entrance is a gravel driveway on the south side of 31st street, roughly halfway between Louisiana Street and Haskell Avenue. There is ample room along the drive or the wide paved shoulder of 31st Street to park your car.

Directions to Baker-Haskell Wetlands:

I-70 (KS Turnpike) to Lawrence
Exit West Lawrence (Exit 202)
South on Iowa Street (Hwy 59) to 31st Street
East to Entrance (past stop sign at Louisiana Street)

- or -

K-10 West to Lawrence (Turns into 23rd Street)
South on Haskell Avenue (2nd stoplight off K-10) to 31st Street
West to Entrance

- or -

K-10 East to Lawrence
North on Iowa Street (Hwy 59) to 31st Street
East to Entrance (past stop sign at Louisiana Street)

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3) Status of the Monarch Population

by Chip Taylor

In the August Email Update and the Premigration Newsletter, I predicted that the overwintering population would be approximately 5 hectares this winter, down from the long term average of 9.6 hectares and last year’s total of 9.35 hectares. Unfortunately, the reports from around the country suggest that the migration will be even smaller than I anticipated when I made this assessment. The late summer monarch population from Michigan eastward through Ontario and the eastern states and all of New England appears to be below normal. The only sizable populations are those in Minnesota, Wisconsin and Iowa and these are lower than last year. The information on the overall size of the population is still fragmentary but it seems likely that it is even smaller than I predicted earlier. I’m now expecting that the overwintering population will be 3-4 hectares, the second lowest overwintering population in the last 10 years.

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4) Timing of the Migration

There have been several reports suggesting that the last generation of the summer is a bit late this year. Large numbers of 5th instar larvae have been found later than usual by Don Davis in Ontario and Jim Langhus in NE Iowa. On the other hand, Karen Oberhauser and her many associates who have been monitoring the larval populations in many portions of the country report that, although the population is low in many regions, the timing of the last generation is normal. What, if anything, does this mean for the timing of the migration?

For the last several years we, with the assistance of Dr. David Gibo of the University of Toronto Erindale Campus, have been tracking the leading edge and peak of the migration with the use of the data from tags recovered from butterflies that reach Mexico. These data show that the migration is remarkably similar from year to year. Based on this information we can make predictions for the peak in the migration across latitudes. These predictions work fairly well except along the east coast where weather factors seem to frequently delay the migration along the immediate coastline.

The predicted peaks of the migration by latitude are as follows:

48 degrees - 29 August

45 degrees - 6 September

42 degrees - 14 September

39 degrees - 22 September

36 degrees - 29 September

33 degrees - 7 October

30 degrees - 15 October

27 degrees - 23 October

24 degrees - 31 October

19.5 degrees* - 17 November

*This latitude represents the general vicinity of the overwintering colonies. The monarch colony at El Rosario is usually opened to the public close to the 18th of November.

Please keep in mind that these are predictions for the peak of the migration. The leading edge of the migration arrives at each latitude 11-18 days before the peak is reached.

If you don’t know the latitude for your location, visit "How Far Is It?" at

http://www.indo.com/distance

and enter your city and state. The stats for Lawrence, KS are 38:57:46N 95:15:19W (about 39 degrees N latitude)

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5) Tagging Monarchs

September is tagging month for the northern portions of the country with October being the prime time for the southern states (see below). As the monarchs from Minnesota and Wisconsin move southward over the next few weeks, they should provide good tagging opportunities for taggers in the central portion of the country from the upper midwest to the Texas border. Tagging will take a bit more effort in much of the rest of the country. Nevertheless, there should be good numbers of monarchs to tag if the taggers can locate roosting sites and flower patches where the monarchs have stopped to obtain nectar. In areas with drought, flowers and monarchs are most likely to be found in wetlands.

If you haven’t ordered your tags, you can still do so but don’t hesitate - the migration is on the way and the tags are going fast! As we mentioned before, we anticipate running out of tags again this year, so head on over "Gulliver's Gift Shop" at

http://Shop.MonarchWatch.org

or give our ordering division (at Home Earth) a call at 800-780-9986 and become a Monarch Watch Member today!

Data Sheets are included in the Tagging Kit and you can also download a PDF version at

http://www.MonarchWatch.org/download/pdf/02data.pdf

Happy Tagging!

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6) The Proboscis – Structure and Function

Adult butterflies and most (but not all) moths feed on liquids by extending their proboscis and sucking up the fluids through this structure. The proboscis represents one of the many remarkable changes that occurs during metamorphosis from the larval to the adult stage. Larvae use mandibles to bite, chew and move their food into their oral cavity or mouth. The adults lack mandibles and instead ingest their food through two modified structures known as galeae. In cross section these structures are two half circles which are concave like half noons. The galeae fit together such that the concavities from a central tube or channel. An astonishing feature of this structure is that the two galeae fit together with a tongue and groove set of overlapping plates such that the internal tube functions as a straw. (Imagine cutting a straw lengthwise and then fitting it together again so that it still functioned to draw up liquids). The galeae are hollow yet contain muscles, tracheae, nerves and an open circulatory system.

Opinions differ as to how the proboscis is extended. The most commonly held view is that hydrostatic (fluid; in this case, blood) pressure is used to extend the proboscis and that muscles are used to move the tip of the proboscis and to retract it. A special pump (cibarial pump) is used to imbibe the liquids. The top of the oral cavity can be drawn upward by a strong set of muscles producing a negative pressure, or sucking action, that draws the fluids upward. Since most butterfly flowers contain small quantities of dilute nectar, capillary action at the tip of the proboscis combined with the pumping action must be very efficient for butterflies to obtain nutrients from flowers. The proboscis also has two major types of sensilla (sensory receptors) that are presumably used to assess the qualities and quantity of the liquids.

The next time you watch a monarch emerge pay close attention to the mouth parts. Often you will see the two galeae as separate structures which the newly emerged butterfly moves back and forth independently until they come together (see link to photo below). Somehow, as these two halves of the proboscis come together, the tongue and grooves overlap and they are "zippered" together forming the complete tube. Occasionally, in very old butterflies, the galeae become partially unzipped. When this happens, the butterflies have difficulty feeding and die shortly thereafter.

http://www.MonarchWatch.org/update/2002/proboscis.html

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7) Festival of Butterflies a Success!

Last month we participated in Powell Gardens' Sixth Annual Festival of Butterflies and can report that it was a great success. Approximately 18,000 people visited the Gardens over two weekends and kept us very busy! ;-)

We has lots of critters on hand in addition to several displays and we spent our days educating the public about monarchs and Monarch Watch. Chip gave several presentations the second weekend and provided tagging demonstrations as well. Kids of all ages not only learned a lot but had a great time - some photos of the festival have been posted online at

http://www.MonarchWatch.org/festival

Although this event falls smack dab in the middle of our busiest season, we're going to try to do it again next year so plan on coming out to see us and join in the fun!

For more information visit http://www.PowellGardens.org or call them at 816-697-2600.

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8) How to Unsubscribe from this Update

If you would like to be removed from this Monarch Watch Update mailing list, please send an email message to

Listproc@ku.edu

and include in the body of the message (no other text):

UNSUBSCRIBE MONARCH-WATCH-UPDATE

If you have any questions about this, please feel free to contact us anytime.

Thanks!

Monarch Watch
http://www.MonarchWatch.org
monarch@ku.edu