In this Spot on Science, learn with Margaret about migration and see the stages of metamorphosis up close. Also, did you know butterflies need one specific plant to survive? Find out how you can help in the effort to keep milkweed growing!
Class Discussion Questions:
1) How can you help migrating butterflies in your community?
2) Diagram the lifecycle of a monarch butterfly.
Read the Script:
[Margaret] When you see Monarch butteflies you probably don't imagine them as very strong insects. I mean, they're pretty but those wings are so flimsy, right? Well, you might wanna take a closer look because these guys make quite the journey during their cross continent migration.
To find out more I invited Amy Roskilly from the Cuyahoga Soil and Water Conservation District to the studio. I started by asking her to talk about the long journey these little butterflies take.
[Amy] Sure, well right now in the fall they're making their journey from Canada all the way down to Mexico, which is about 3,000 miles they're flying.
[Margaret] That’s so far
[Amy] It's amazing.
[Margaret] And Ohio is one of their big first pit stops coming from Mexico.
[Amy] Yeah, so they're flying from Canada all the way over Lake Erie onto the shores of, here in Cleveland, and so they need some time to rest and to refuel before they start up their journey again and make it over to Mexico.
[Margaret] And now, those are big adult butterflies that are making the journey but you brought in some great examples of what the butterflies are like before they get their wings. So why don't you start us off, so it starts as an egg, obviously.
[Amy] Right, it starts as an egg and then it moves to various stages of caterpillars. So right here we have a smaller caterpillar.
[Margaret] Yeah, he's pretty tiny.
[Amy] Pretty tiny, although they're super tiny when they first emerge, like you can barely see them. This one right here is about ready to go. That's about at its fifth stage, they shed their skin. And then when they get about that big they go into, they crawl up high, and they turn into a J formation, I could show you guys right here.
[Margeret] Oh, wow.
[Amy] And they'll be like that for about a day or so and then they're going to turn, it's really cool, they're gonna turn into a chrysalis. Meaning that the caterpillar will be no more and it will look like this.
[Margaret] I didn't realize that they would be so shiny like that, it looks like a little Christmas ornament.
[Amy] It does, it does. And I'm not sure of the relevance of the gold beading on it but it looks pretty fancy, you know? And so they're like this for probably about two weeks or so, 10 to 14 days, and then, and they're going through a major transformation, again, the caterpillar is no longer, all those parts are being absorbed and turning into a butterfly.
Margaret] That's amazing. A lot of the attention gets put on big beautiful butterflies but there are these really important plants that you were telling me about.
[Amy] Yeah, so the Monarch butterflies can only lay their eggs on Milkweed. Swamp Milkweed, common Milkweed, there's probably maybe eight to 10 different varieties they can lay on. They tend to prefer common Milkweed. And the reason they can lay on there is because when the caterpillars emerge that's the only plant that they can eat to survive.
[Margaret] And is there a lot of Milkweed around or is it hard for them to figure out where to go?
[Amy] It’s hard for them to figure out where to go. So the Monarch population has declined by about 80% in the past 20 years and the main reason is because of loss of habitat. Not finding the Milkweed they need to lay their eggs.
[Margaret] You were telling me that we can play an important role in getting more Milkweed.
[Amy] Yeah, so we are doing a collection of common Milkweed pods and we have some here to show you today. In these pods are Milkweed seeds and in them, they're very fuzzy too, and what this does is the seed right there with the fuzzy stuff on it called the koma, that takes the seed away to be planted somewhere else.
So we are collecting those and you can drop them off at collection points at various Soil and Water Conservation Districts across Ohio. The collection goes from September 1st through October 31st and we take them and we give them to the Ohio Pollinator Habitat Initiative who processes the seeds, takes all that fuzzy stuff off of there, and then they package them and they return those seeds and use them for different habitats.
[Margaret] Excellent.
[Amy] All across Ohio
[Margaret] I'm gonna have to go out to my garden and see what I can find.
[Amy] Please do. And we definitely want people to pick them where they're permitted to pick them, whether it's your yard or you have permission from your neighbor. If you're going into a park system ask the naturalist, we don't want people picking them where they shouldn't be picking them.
[Margaret] Definitely, definitely. well thank you so much for coming and sharing.
[Amy] Thank you, thank you for having me.