Hey, wait, take me with you!

No, leave me alone! Let me go!

Have you ever seen insects struggling to free themselves from the reproductive chamber of a milkweed blossom? 

Instead of producing loose pollen grains, milkweeds produce pollinia, a waxy, sticky packet of golden pollen grains originating from a single anther.  When bees and other insects forage for nectar in the "nectar troughs," where the pollinia are, they emerge with wishbone-shaped pollinia on their feet or other body parts. That is, if they emerge at all. Sometimes they die there; the reproductive chamber becomes a floral death trap. 

What may seem like nature's appalling act of cruelty is actually a unique case of floral pollination, the transfer of pollina from one blossom to another. 

"Milkweed flowers bloom in umbels which are clusters of individual flowers on stems that emerge from a common point," explains Eric Eldredge in an article published by the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Natural Resources Conservation Service. "Flowers of different species of milkweed differ in size, color, and fragrance, but all produce their pollen in waxy sacs called pollinia.  The pollinia are located in two anther pouches adjacent to vertical stigmatic slits of the flowers. Pairs of adjacent pollinia are connected to each other by translator arms from a clamp located in the middle, called the corpusculum (Bookman, 1981). The complete structure is called a pollinarium."

"Insects that visit a flower to drink nectar struggle to grasp the slippery surfaces and may accidentally slip their leg, tarsus, mouthpart, or other appendage into the opening at the bottom of the stigmatic slit. This slit is formed by guide rails, which are lined with bristles that prevent the insect moving its appendage any direction but up. The top of the slit leads into the opening of the corpusculum, which has hard, sharp inside edges that taper together at the top. The corpusculum clamps firmly to the insect by pinching onto the insect's appendage. In its struggles to escape, if the insect is large enough, it can withdraw the paired pollinia from the anther pouches and fly away."

We've seen dead honey bees trapped in the milkweed blossoms while other bees forage around their carcasses. And then we've seen the frantic struggles (below). Fortunately this bee in the first three photos escaped. Another bee did not.

You've probably read the children's book, "Where's Waldo?"

Waldo wanders around the world, gets lost in the crowd or scenery, and it's your job to find him. Where'd he go?

If you have a praying mantis in your yard, you probably play "Where's Waldo?" a lot.

In our yard, it's "Walda." She's a gravid (pregnant) praying mantis and she never stays in one spot for long.

Camouflaged in the bushes, motionless, and deep in "prayer," she's a lost cause.

And then you see where she is. The Stagmomantis limbata. The bushes stir, and the next thing you know, she's gripping a bee in her spiked forelegs.

Where's Walda?

Right there.  Right there.

Our showy milkweed (Asclepias speciosa) is putting on a show.

The towering plant--a good eight feet--anchors the garden as we patiently wait for monarch butterflies to arrive and lay their eggs. 

It's mid-August and it appears the monarchs are not coming here to our little pollinator garden in Vacaville, Calif. Maybe we'll see some during their late summer or early fall migration--on their way to their overwintering sites along coastal California.

Meanwhile, the speciosa has more than its share of lady beetles (aka ladybugs) and aphids.

But now we have a new visitor, well, maybe a permanent resident.

A praying mantis, Stagmomantis limbata (as confirmed by mantis expert Lohit Garikipati, a UC Davis graduate and Bohart Museum of Entomology associate now attending graduate school in Towson University, Maryland) has arrived.

For the first several days, Ms. Mantis hung upside down and did not eat (at least in our presence). She watched the bees buzzing around but made no effort to snag one. We think she was yawning. "Okay, I know you're there. I don't care and I'm not hungry."

Then we found her exoskeleton on one of the speciosa leaves.

A mantid's "skeleton," you know, is outside its body and it's known as an "exoskeleton." It reminds us of a suit of armor, for protection, support and form (is it a "suite of amour" when love abounds?).

A young mantis eats and outgrows its exoskeleton and then it molts (sheds it). Scientists say some species of growing mantids may lose their exoskeletons as many as 10 times.

And, according to Garikipati, a mantis that has just molted may not eat for two or three days.

Did you hear that, bees?

So, bottom line, no monarchs on the milkweed.

But we do have assorted lady beetles, aphids, and one praying mantis and her exoskeleton. 

Wait, correct that. Just one mantis. A breeze just swept away the exoskeleton.

2020 was a troubling year for the monarch butterfly, Danaus plexippus. 

The severe population decline led the Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation to seek endangered species status from the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS).

USFWS announced Dec. 15 that the iconic butterfly qualified as an endangered species but resources are not available to place it on the high priority list. Translation: no funding. However, USFWS said the "monarchs' status will be reviewed each year by the agency and conservation efforts will continue."

Still, both the Western population, which overwinters along the California coast, and the Eastern population, which overwinters in central Mexico, are declining rapidly. Since the 1990s, monarchs have declined by approximately 80 percent in central Mexico, and by 99 percent in coastal California, scientists say. The threats impacting the monarchs? "Habitat loss and fragmentation has occurred throughout the monarch's range. Pesticide use can destroy the milkweed monarchs need to survive," USFWS says. "A changing climate has intensified weather events which may impact monarch populations."

Incredibly,  2020 was a very good year for monarchs--the best year yet--in our family's pollinator garden in Vacaville, Calif. We counted more than 300 eggs or caterpillars.  We donated some to researchers to establish populations, and we reared some ourselves.

Our entire garden was a'flutter. The monarchs nectared on the milkweed flowers, Mexican sunflowers (Tithonia rotundifolia), butterfly bush (Buddleia davidii),  and assorted other flowers.

Monarch butterflies usually lay their eggs beneath the milkweed leaves, but sometimes we see them laying their eggs on flowers and stems. One memorable day in late summer, we spotted four monarch eggs on a milkweed "floral bouquet."  We offer the monarchs a choice of milkweed, primarily: narrowleaf milkweed, Asclepias. fascicularis,and showy milkweed, A. speciosa, both natives; and tropical milkweed, A.  curassavica, a non-native. ( As recommended, we cut back or remove the tropical milkweed before the migratory season.) 

Let's hope that monarchs will fare better in 2021. Check out the Xerces Society's page  at https://xerces.org/monarchs and let's do what we can to help.