Cooperative Living May 2016 - 18

Newly Tagged
Monarch
Recovery of the tags not only
provides important data to
understand and save this
'endangered phenomenon,'
but additionally Monarch
Watch pays very good
money per tag to painfully
poor Mexican workers to
recover the tags. This
employment helps these
indigenous people to survive
without cutting and selling the
precious Oyamel trees of the
Monarch overwintering
grounds.
currents and engaging in wing-powered
flight. Stopping only to refuel on fall
blossoms and roost through darkness, it
takes about 40 to 60 days to reach a
narrow Texas corridor, Eagle Pass, through
which massive clouds of butterflies funnel,
sweeping from there on to their
destinations: 12 colonies, only a few
hectares each, within stands of Oyamel fir
trees at elevations of 11,000-plus feet on
the not-too-cold, not-too-warm
southwesterly slopes of the Trans-Volcanic
Mountains of Mexico.
" To put their 2,000-plus-mile journey in
perspective, Toronto zoologist David Gibo
estimates that an equivalent distance for a
6-foot-tall person would be 11 times
around the world!
" In the May-June period, monarchs
begin arriving in Virginia. These are the
offspring of the overwintering monarchs
that flew from their sanctuaries in Mexico
to lay their eggs in Texas. Here, another
generation begins as females lay eggs, each
about the size of a poppy seed, singly on
leaves of fresh, beautiful milkweed.
" The time span that it takes from egg to
flying butterfly varies depending on the
temperatures ... it slows down if too hot or
chilly. In about three to five days, a tiny
caterpillar emerges and eats the egg case
... nature wastes nothing. Next it begins to
munch, chomp and devour the milkweed
leaves. Always hungry, caterpillars eat and
16 | Cooperative Living | May 2016
eat, shedding their skin, eating it and
devouring more leaves for close to two
weeks until finally they are about 4,000
times bigger than when they began and
ready to initiate the magical process of
metamorphosis.
" After finding just the right spot and
spinning a silk button, they implant their
back feet into the silk and suspend
themselves in the shape of a 'J.' After some
internal processes are complete, their skin
'To put their 2,000plus-mile
journey in
perspective, Toronto
zoologist David Gibo
estimates that an
equivalent distance for
a 6-foot-tall person
would be 11 times
around the world!'
splits and is raised by muscles to reveal a
soft, yellow-striped chrysalis that hardens
into an inch-long, lovely green shell with
gold dots. In about 10 days the shell
becomes transparent and then, quiet as a
whisper, the butterfly inside pushes its way
out of the shell. At first looking like a
folded, deflated beach ball, the new
butterfly pumps fluid from its swollen
abdomen to straighten its wings. In about
five minutes it is a full-sized featherweight
flyer with a wing span of 4 inches.
Incredible!
" As a photographer, it has taken at least
three summers, with Milan's help, to
document this entire process in photos
that I show in my PowerPoint
presentations. Sometimes I'd spend hours
watching and waiting for a chrysalis to
open or a 'J' to pupate, only to look away
for a second to check dinner on the stove,
or the angle of the action being not quite
right for good photos, and then to have
to wait again for another opportunity.
" The process of pupation and
metamorphosis is mesmerizing, its
complexity and beauty so illustrative of
the awesomeness of nature. For us it is
about more than monarchs ... it is about
the magnificence and plight of all
pollinators, and the concern for what is
happening to our precious natural
resources and environment, " Marie
concludes. 
www.co-opliving.com
http://www.co-opliving.com
Cooperative Living May 2016

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Cooperative Living May 2016
