CountryNaturals.com > Butterflies
Original Butterfly & Moth Photos & Articles
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 Fritillary |
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 Lorquin's Admiral |
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Plight of the Monarch The number of monarch butterflies in the U.S. is declining at an alarming rate. This is due to their natural habitat being destroyed by--you guessed it--humans. What can we do about it? GROW MILKWEED! What's that you say? Milkweed is a weed? Milkweed is for pulling up, stamping out, spraying, poisioning, destroying? Not for planting, growing, nuturing? Without milkweed there can be no monarchs. The choice is ours. Some milkweed plants are not very pretty, especially with hungry little monarch caterpillars munching away at their leaves, but this is the only food those babies can eat. If you can find a sunny spot, out of the way of traffic, wind, kids, and pets, plant a milkweed patch and hope that if you plant it, they will come. Milkweed is the "host" plant for the monarchs. That's where the butterflies lay their eggs, and what the larvae eat. Butterflies also need nectar plants for food. When you're choosing flower seeds, look for the little butterfly logo on the seed packet, or in the catalog, and plant some butterfly food to go along with your other blooms. As of this writing, we have no monarchs in our area and I'm still searching for wild milkweed. I planted Showy Milkweed seeds, but they never sprouted, so I'm starting over again. Hopefully next year I'll have better news to report. HINT: Monarch larvae start out tiny. They grow out of their skins several times before maturing. You may not recognize them at first, so be careful not to harm anything that might be eating your milkweed until you're sure what it is. ANOTHER HINT: Spiders are NOT butterfly friends. If you find any 8-legged critters in your milkweed patch or your butterfly garden,, relocate them to some other part of the garden. |
Monarch Butterfly Links
Butterflies and Moths of North America
The
Xerces Society
Here you can find out what you can do to help the Monarch.
Monarch
Butterfly Migration
TIme Lapse Video form YouTube
The
Monarch Butterfly in North America
a gateway to news, information, activities, and resources
about the biology and conservation of this fascinating insect.
Other Butterfly Links
Butterfly-Moth.com
My site for butterflies and moths
Red
Admiral Emerging
Time Lapse video from YouTube
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Geometridae Mesoleuca
Another mystery solved! I heard back from Paul Opler. He identified it as Geometridae Mesoleuca. The common name seems to be something like "Beautiful Carpet." He called it a "day flying moth." I also found similar listings under "Inchworm moths."
These little moths have been in my yard for a week--since early March (Lane County, Oregon--official sightings photos 3/13/2007 & 3/14/2007). In flight they look white, but they're actually very colorful. I think we have 2 varieties--one with more brown than the other. It's amazing how different they look in various poses.
Here are some better photos--these are large, so they'll be slow to load on dialup.
These guys are very small--no more than 1" across. Some are even smaller. They like our wild salmonberry bushes.
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