Monarchs In Space?
By 250 News
Wednesday, October 28, 2009 12:49 PM
Prince George, B.C.- The Monarch butterfly, known for its distinct orange and black wings and migration patterns that see them flying from B.C. to Central America, may be heading on it’s wildest flight ever. Imagine Monarch butterflies getting a ride on the next space shuttle expedition! That is exactly what the Monarch Watch group out of the United States is trying to achieve. Speaking on the Meisner program this morning on CFISFM, Professor Chip Taylor of Kansas University says the experiment will see what happens when the butterflies are in a weightless scenario “Monarchs are very dependent on gravity to do a lot of things, not all insects are.” says Professor Chip Taylor. “That is going to be cool if we can pull this off. If they function well without gravity we will learn a lot, if they don’t we will learn something so this is going to be a very enlightening experiment.”
Monarchs are considered one of the wonders of the world as they migrate vast distances with extreme accuracy, “It’s almost as if they understood longitude and latitude” says Professor Taylor. He says we should remember man couldn’t even navigate the oceans until a sextant was invented.
“They have the most magnificent migration” says Professor Taylor who has spent the past 18 years studying the insect. In a good year, there will be about 500 million Monarchs in the eastern fly-way. The west coast population is smaller, and not as well known “We need to know more about what they’re doing in British Columbia. That population used to be about a million butterflies, it’s down to 80 to 100 thousand a year.” He says habitat loss is the prime reason for the decline in population.
Taylor says the Monarchs are facing challenges brought on by a beetle outbreak in Central America. That outbreak is killing the forests where Monarchs winter. They are also challenged because of loss of habitat in areas where urban development is ploughing under the milkweed on which Monarch survival depends.
Monarch’s need milkweed and will fly long distances to find it. They lay their eggs on the leaves of the plant, and the larvae eat the leaves until they are ready to form a chrysalis where they undergo metamorphosis, emerging as the easily recognized black and orange winged butterfly.
Monarch facts:
- migrates thousands of kilometres in vast numbers twice a year, a feat likely not performed by any other insect on earth
- has been observed flying more than 1 km above the ground
- is brightly coloured in both its larval and adult forms, a warning to potential predators that it is poisonous
- has recovered from population losses approaching 90 percent in the past but may not be able to rebound from the population levels to which environmental factors are now pushing it
There is a new special project underway called the Monarch Butterfly Fund, dedicated to conservation efforts, and will model their efforts on the successes of Ducks Unlimited. He has started his own program to try and offset the loss of habitat, calling on residents to plant milkweed on their private property in an effort to create what he calls “Monarch Way Stations”. The program is seeing success on the east coast “We have to do something to offset this habitat loss.”
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Posted by: Starbright on October 29 2009 8:18 AM
I fail to see the logic or the benefit(s).