Prepared by Mary Kennedy/Zorro
The downtown portion of the San Antonio River is a landscaped linear park with sidewalk gardens all along both sides of the banks. The San Antonio River Authority planted and maintains the gardens. Several years ago they planted non-native tropical milkweed, and the migrating fall monarchs found it, dropped out of the migration and now stay in San Antonio, mating all winter long. I help monitor this population of monarch each week through-out the winter. The above picture was taken last week as we monitored the milkweed for eggs, larvae, pupae, and adult monarchs. Our numbers on Saturday showed 12 eggs, 4 caterpillars, no pupae and 1 adult male butterfly. Here are graphs of our data.
http://www.mlmp.org/Results/ResultsSite.aspx?state=TX&siteID=1643
Several time in the book the author mentions the study of the O. e. parasite in monarchs. Tomorrow a PhD scientist from Univ. of Georgia will arrive to study the monarchs and to look for the O. e. parasite that you read about in the book. She will sample these monarchs and then go on to the Texas Gulf Coast to study the monarchs that over-winter there.
http://monarchparasites.uga.edu/whatisOE/index.html
2 comments:
Thanks, Mary. It's fascinating to read about what you are doing right in your town about the monarchs.
Mary/Zorro is mentioned in a report dated today, if you'd like to read it:
http://therivardreport.com/san-antonios-tropical-milkweed-patch-raises-monarch-butterfly-questions/
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