- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Monarchs on the move...so many mysteries.
Where do Western monarchs go after leaving their overwintering sites along coastal California in February?
An observation: They didn't stop in the spring or summer to deposit eggs on any of our four species of milkweed in our Vacaville pollinator garden.
Spring? Zero. Zilch. Nada.
Summer? Zero. Zilch. Nada.
Fall? Yes.
Why not spring and summer? Did the monarchs passing through Vacaville opt for "a better habitat" in the cooler Pacific Northwest and beyond (British Columbia)?
"I wish I knew," commented UC Davis distinguished professor emeritus
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
It was a monarch state of mind...
Western monarchs are now settling in their overwintering sites along coastal California, but the iconic butterflies showed up in force at the Bohart Museum of Entomology's recent open house--in the form of specimens, photographs, books, maps and displays.
Some 650 visitors arrived to talk to the scientists, see the displays, and take home native milkweed seed packets, provided by community ecologist Louie Yang, professor of entomology, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology (ENT-NEM). Yang shared seeds of narrow-leafed milkweed, Asclepias fascicularis.
Statistics show that the overwintering population of...
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
UC Davis community ecologist Louie Yang, professor of entomology, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology, was one of 12 invited scientists nationwide who delivered a presentation during the two-day Monarch Butterfly Summit, held recently at the Capitol in Washington D.C. and organized by Sen. Jeffrey Merkley of Oregon.
It was a gathering of science experts and policymakers to share science and conservation actions to help the declining western monarch population. The scientists...
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Monarch Butterfly Alert!
It's early spring and Western monarchs are heading inland from their overwintering sites along the California coast.
Have you seen any monarchs?
A group of monarch researchers from Washington State University, Tufts University, University of California at Santa Cruz, and the Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation seek your participation in the Western Monarch Mystery Challenge to help gain insight as to where the monarchs go. They want to fill "a critical gap in knowledge about habitat needs of migrating monarchs in the spring."
“We are very...
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
How little we know about monarch butterflies, Danaus plexippus...
And how long misinformation can linger...
Take the news about the overwintering 250,000 monarchs recorded along the California coast in the Western Monarch Thanksgiving Count spearheaded by the Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation. That's more than a 100-fold increase from the previous year.
Butterfly guru Art Shapiro, a UC Davis distinguished professor of evolution and ecology who has been monitoring butterfly populations in Central...