by Leslie Renjilian and Betsy Burgeson
Ok, so what's a Methuselah? Great question.
The Methuselahs are the super generation of Monarch butterflies—the fourth and longest-lived of the Monarch generations. While the preceding three generations live only a few weeks each, the Methuselah generation butterflies will live seven or eight months and fly about 5,000 miles in their lifetime.
The photo up top is by Jeanne Wiebenga of a Methuselah Monarch on a hydrangea. (Well actually, it's female so perhaps a Methuselina?) You can tell it's a female because it is missing the telltale black spot on its hindwing. Since the wing side is the pretty side, that's the shot that Jeanne went for, but if she were a nerdier sort of photographer, she might have tried to get the tummy shot because that's the interesting bit about this generation of Monarchs—they are bulkier than the previous four generations because they have a long and difficult life ahead, what with the first leg of that round trip flight to Mexico City coming up next month!
Below is a stunning photo series that visiting photographer Amy Gaskin shared with us. Amy took and edited hundreds of photos at Betsy's August 16th "Monarch Master Class" in the Butterfly Garden. See more of her work here. Thank you, Amy!
Thanks also to Betsy Burgeson for a great Master Class and for help with the captions!
A Monarch egg attached to a young milkweed leaf. Monarchs will only lay eggs on milkweed because that is the only plant that their babies (the caterpillars) eat. Betsy found the first of egg of the season on July 16th on a milkweed growing at the back of the Amp. Since then, she and her crew have found (and taken in for hand-rearing) just over 200 eggs. A butterfly only lays a single egg on each milkweed plant because a caterpillar will eat the entire plant during its 2-week feeding frenzy. She can lay as many as 300 eggs in a day and up to 500 in her life. Now you can see why having an abundance of milkweed plants is so important!
A baby caterpillar emerging from its egg. The baby hatches about 4 days after the egg is laid.
Caterpillars (or larvae) go through 5 instar phases, which is a fancy way of saying they shed their skin and grow. They will grow 2000 times their size in only 2 weeks. To put that into perspective, it would be like a newborn human growing to the size of the Statue of Liberty in the first 2 weeks of life!
Well, once the "Very Hungry Caterpillar" has grown out if its “clothes” for the 5th time, it finds a good place to hang in a “J” as it prepares to amaze/freak out lucky onlookers when it splits the skin over its head and wiggles out of its teenage "clothing" for the last time. Amy captured this photo about 5 seconds after the skin started splitting in the formation of the chrysalis.
Once the caterpillar has wiggled out of it’s caterpillar skin fully, it has transformed into a magical sea green colored chrysalis with metallic gold accents. Did you know the word chrysalis is derived from the Greek word chrysos, meaning gold? The chrysalis is attached via a black structure called a cremaster and a silk pad that is spun when the caterpillar is ready to hang in its “J”. In the photo above you can see the silk pad and cremaster attached to the underside of a milkweed leaf.
In the photo above, Betsy is moving a small rearing cage filled with “teens” & chrysalids. To support the rearing of Monarchs at Chautauqua Institution, the BTG purchased and donated five new extra-large net houses for the Monarch Nursery in the Gardens shop. Not only do these allow Betsy to gather more eggs but she is able to have the larvae separated by stage so they don’t inadvertently eat their brothers and sisters. Ew.
And thank you BTG Friends and Life Members. Your donations allow us to support important work like this! Caterpillars in the wild have a 10% survival rate, whereas those hand-reared in enclosures have a 90% survival rate.
This floral arrangement was designed to showcase key nectar sources for the Methuselah Monarchs – fall-blooming perennials such as goldenrod, asters and ironweed. Arrangements like this are also put into the rearing cages for any butterflies that eclose (the technical term for emerge) and are awaiting release.
Over 100 people attended the Monarch Master Class in the Butterfly Garden on August 16.
This season Betsy will tag 100 Monarchs as part of the Monarch Watch program. Each Monarch will get a sticker with a unique number. As the tagged butterfly makes its 2000+ mile journey to Mexico, anyone who spots it can submit an observation at https://form.jotform.com/242304550819050.
Then next Spring, we can look online to see whether any of the tagged monarchs that were released from Chautauqua this year were seen anywhere along their migration route or in their overwintering grounds in the mountains of Mexico. If you would like to see whether any of “our” monarchs were found, you can go online next April and search the Tag Recoveries for the Tag codes AJCY100-AJCY199. These are 100 from 2024!
Meet Myrtle, the first butterfly to be tagged and released this summer at the Friday Master Class.
The launch....
And she's off! Godspeed, Myrtle! Hope to see you in Mexico in February!
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