northeast-flora-and-fauna

Here's an interesting member of the milkweeds, part of the dogbane family . It's a Butterfly Milkweed (AKA Butterfly Weed ). This milkweed is known for its small but bright orange flowers; when in bloom they're pretty easy to spot. They do have a taller relative, the Fewflower Milkweed which is technically in New Jersey but I'm not sure I've ever seen one [1]. A lot of times you can verify that a plant is a milkweed (or dogbane) by breaking a small part of a leaf; if you see a white sticky latex-like substance oozing out, you've got a milkweed (or dogbane). This stuff is what makes milkweeds poisonous and makes the Monarch caterpillars that eat it poisonous too. Butterfly Milkweed doesn't really ooze this substance. My understanding is that Monarch caterpillars can/will eat Butterfly Milkweed but won't become poisonous like their relatives who feed on other milkweed species [2].  Though their flowers are small, they are considered to be fairly prolifi...

For Throwback Thursday, here's a mantis I've talked about but haven't shown before. Here's what is believed to be a Narrow-winged Mantis , a fairly close relative of the Chinese Mantis . And yes, it looks like a Monarch butterfly was on the menu this day. While Monarch butterflies absorb some of the toxins in the milkweed plants they ate as caterpillars, making them toxic to most predators, but some mantises will prey upon them. There are lots of ideas about this: When they feed on young caterpillars, the caterpillars may not have eaten enough milkweed to be poisonous enough to bother the mantis. Mantises generally avoid eating the guts of the butterflies. Though the Monarch's entire body is generally considered poisonous, some poisons are most prevalent in the gut. It's possible that the mantises avoid the poisons they're most sensitive to by throwing the guts away. I'm not sure that all species of mantis will eat Monarchs. Most sources indicate the Ch...

After my 1st persistent [1] snowfall of the season I figured I'd show something warm today. Perhaps the spirit of Muhammad Ali was out there, since some of the meadow denizens could float like a butterfly and others could sting like a bee. This little lady stings exactly like a bee, since she's a Western Honeybee , and was busy with a goldenrod. She does not sting much like Muhammad Ali in one way though, since she dies after stinging. October 6, 2022 at Duke Farms Photo 249884608, (c) jpviolette, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC) This next denizen isn't a kamikaze stinger; it's a Dark Paper Wasp . Assuming this is a female, she can (like many bees/wasps) sting without dying herself. She's also foraging on a goldenrod. October 6, 2022 at Duke Farms Photo 249884670, (c) jpviolette, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC) And finally, who floats like a butterfly better than a Monarch butterfly? (I suppose other butterfly species might argue they float even better, but Monarch...

Over the course of the summer I'll usually spot quite a few Monarch butterflies. I'm sure this is due to a few factors: The bright orange coloring and decent size makes them more conspicuous than most other insects. Though their populations are trending in a bad direction, they remain one of the more common butterflies around. They spend a lot of time around wildflowers, exactly where you'd expect to see them [1]. Monarchs are considered to be a fairly classic example of aposematism , which is attention-getting signal that an organism is dangerous to eat. In the Monarch, the bright orange coloring alerts (many) predators that they're poisonous. (This probably prevents them from getting eaten by most birds, though I've seen mantises eating them.) September 8, 2022 at Fairview Farm Photo 248393626, (c) jpviolette, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC) [1] Some butterflies aren't big fans of nectar and are rarely found among them. (I'm looking at you, commas . And y...

Most of the time when you see a slightly large orange butterfly with black "veins" in NJ, you're seeing a Monarch . But not all the time. Every once in a while you could be seeing a Viceroy  (this this guy). While they look quite similar, there is an excellent field mark to tell the difference. There's a dark line that parallels the back wing; see the circled blue in the 2nd picture. Though both the Viceroy and the Monarch look similar and can be found nectaring on flowers, their lives also have important differences. As you've probably heard by now Monarch caterpillars eat poisonous milkweed plants and become poisonous themselves as a result. Something similar happens with Viceroys, but as caterpillars they eat trees in the willow family , absorb salicylic acid from the trees, and become somewhat poisonous themselves. This is why their relationship with Monarch is now considered to be Mullerian mimicry , where both species benefit from looking like one another. ...

If you like your colors between red and yellow on the visible light spectrum , orange you going to be glad to see this post. Amidst the vibrantly orange Butterfly Milkweed there are 3 primarily orange butterflies: Just right of center and probably the reason I noticed the activity is a Monarch butterfly. My recollection is that these milkweeds were pretty far out into a meadow, and I didn't notice the Great Spangled Fritillary until I got my binoculars on them. This butterfly is just to the left of the Monarch. But it wasn't until I got home and processed the photos that I realized there was also a Pearl Crescent in there too, a little to the left of the Great Spangled Fritillary. Generally speaking, I don't see open hostility between most pollinators. It's not at all uncommon to see butterflies, bees, wasps, and other pollinators near one another and (mostly) going about their own business. There are other instances though when I'm not sure what's going o...

For at least 3 weeks now I've been seeing Red Admirals around. These are butterflies that don't have the long, regular migration cycle of the Monarch butterfly ; instead they basically migrate south when their caterpillar host food - nettles - is no longer available as winter sets in. And then in the spring as we get our nettles back, the Red Admirals migrate north to take advantage of the food source. Don't confuse the Red Admirals with the Red-spotted Admirals ; despite the similar name these are 2 different species that don't even look alike. I talked about Red-spotted Admirals here , and talked about Red Admirals here . These butterflies are fairly common, and if you're in woods and meadows a lot you're likely to run across them. They're considered more human-tolerant than most butterflies. They'll sometimes even land on you, though this is probably about them trying to drink up some sweat than it is raw friendliness. June 2, 2022 at Duke Farms Pho...

After a midweek Duke Farms program, this American Lady butterfly was spotted near the Orchid Range. I've discussed before how to distinguish this butterfly from its more common Painted Lady cousin. Although smaller and with a different wing pattern than yesterday's Monarch , they might be confused with the Monarch if you see it fluttering across a meadow at a distance. Also similar to Painted Ladies and Monarchs, these butterflies migrate here as the weather warms, so you'll probably never see them really early in the season. And since they lay eggs mostly on flowers in the aster family, you probably need these to be fairly mature (though not necessarily in bloom) before you see American Ladies. May 25, 2022 at Duke Farms Photo 205018075, (c) jpviolette, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC)

Monarch butterflies are back, though they may not be easy to spot/identify. Though this is my 1st decent (non-blurry) picture of them this season, I've almost certainly been seeing solitary ones fluttering around since mid-May. The main problem right now is that there aren't a lot of flowers in bloom, and many butterflies don't sit still unless there's some nectar for them to slurp up. There is quite a bit of Foxglove Beardtongue in bloom, though this plant seems more popular with bumblebees. Monarchs and many other butterflies (I'm pretty sure I've seen glimpses of Eastern Tiger Swallowtails too) seem to be flying maniacally over the meadows looking for the few nectar sources available to them. But things are changing. Monarchs somewhat surprisingly will visit the non-native Red Clover , and that's in bloom already. Our milkweeds and dogbanes have just started to bloom, and Monarchs (among many other pollinators) love that stuff. Pretty soon there ought t...

I saw this Red-winged Blackbird who "stopped to smell the flowers" earlier in the month. Or did it? Although birds do have olfactory glands to be able to smell, they're not well developed in most birds including our passerine friend here. Similarly, these birds have extremely few taste buds. For most birds, smell and taste presumably aren't a big part of their lives . There are exceptions. We know our Turkey Vultures have quite good senses of smell which they use to find dead animals. And there are questions. It's believed that birds learn to avoid eating Monarch butterflies after tasting them, which doesn't sound compatible with a weak sense of taste. So what's this bird doing? I'm assuming it's about seeds and insects; birds know that pollinated flowers tend to produce seeds, and that the flowers attract both insects that eat the plants and that pollinate the flowers. Stopping to check out the flower could scare up a meal. May 15, 2022 at Duk...

Here's a Variegated Fritillary from last autumn, probably near the end of the season when you've got a reasonable chance of finding them. This is a species that used to be an uncommon visitor from the south, but these days it's far from jaw-dropping to spot one. Similar to the Monarch (who admittedly migrates further), this species is a migrator, fleeing south for the winter and returning again the next summer. It's possible that climate change lets them migrate south to higher latitudes than in previous decades and making their return trip the next summer both shorter and more likely to occur. Like its more commonly seen relative the Great Spangled Fritillary (who I've shown before ), violets are the host plants for the Variegated Fritillary. October 15, 2021 at Duke Island Park Photo 168430239, (c) jpviolette, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC) Though it's not difficult to confuse this fritillary with the Great Spangled Fritillary, I usually get suspicious if ...

I got this picture of a Monarch landing on a milkweed (probably Common Milkweed). Although this plant looked pretty young, most milkweeds had blossomed earlier in the summer [1], and I don't see flowers on it. My suspicion is that this is a female looking for a good spot to lay an egg, which will hatch into a milkweed-eating caterpillar. I'm told that under favorable conditions a Monarch can go from egg to adult butterfly in a little over 25 days: 3-8 days to hatch 3-5 days for each instar X 5 instars = 15-25 days as a caterpillar 8-15 days in chrysalis 26-48 days to become a butterfly Any egg laid on this day should be a functional adult by either mid-September or very early October. Both these dates most likely mean it would be in the super generation that migrates down to winter in Mexico [2]. August 15, 2021 at Duke Farms Photo 152591256, (c) jpviolette, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC) [1] You can see flowering milkweed any time of the summer. If a plant is cut before it...

This is a pretty good picture of a  Monarch butterfly using its proboscis to drink nectar from deep in a Wild Teasel  flower. I was wondering if a long proboscis was necessary for a pollinator to use this flower, but my understanding is that bees, wasps, and flower flies are all common pollinators of these wildflowers. I guess this means that even though the flowers are long and narrow, you don't need to get to the bottom of them to get to pollen/nectar. Teasels aren't native to North America, making it a little surprising that they're fairly popular with the pollinator community. Sometimes native pollinators simply don't know how to handle invasive plants. As invasive plants go, teasels don't have an awful reputation. They obviously are successful enough to be taking resources that could be used by native plants, but they aren't ecologically useless. Besides being a useful food source for our pollinators, the seeds are eaten by small birds like finches and chi...

As I mentioned in a previous post, milkweed plants (like many native plants) have their own little communities , and it's not unusual to see insects sharing these plants. Here are a couple examples. Here is a Red Milkweed Beetle sharing its milkweed with what are probably (it's difficult to ID these little guys) Oleander Aphids (above and to the left of the beetle), the former a beloved native insect and the latter a somewhat destructive invasive one. (Or perhaps I've got the wrong aphid - apparently there are other possibilities .) July 28, 2021 at Sourland Mountain Preserve Photo 148654785, (c) jpviolette, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC) And here's another picture, this one of a Monarch caterpillar sharing a milkweed with (presumably) more of those Oleander Aphids. July 28, 2021 at Sourland Mountain Preserve Photo 148654667, (c) jpviolette, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC) Notes: I don't think these insects feel neighborly towards one another, though there may b...

Here's a good picture that makes it easy to determine the sex of your Monarch butterfly. You can see what looks a little like a pair of dots superimposed on the veins on the back wings. These usually stand out pretty prominently when you're looking at the top of the wings; they're harder to see when the wings are up and you're seeing the underside of the wings. These spots are scales that, in other butterflies, release pheromones that help females find males. (Apparently we're not sure that they're doing this for Monarchs.) A more subjective way of telling the difference between males and females is to look at the thickness of the veins. The veins on the males are usually noticeably thinner than you'd see on females. You could also argue that the thinner veins of the males make their pheromone dots stand out more than they would if they existed on the thicker female veins. July 28, 2021 at Sourland Mountain Preserve Photo 148655927, (c) jpviolette, some ri...

They're so cute at that age - here are a couple Monarch caterpillars I saw during a late July trip to the Sourland Mountain Preserve. I believe that both of these guys are facing down; the front tentacles are usually longer than the back tentacles. They're probably eating Common Milkweed; I think that's the most commonly seen milkweed at Sourland. We might consider Monarch caterpillars to be picky eaters, only eating milkweed plants. But look at it from their perspective: They'll eat Common Milkweed, Butterfly Milkweed, Swamp Milkweed, etc. New Jersey has 12 species of milkweed (though I think I've only seen 5 species myself). Both caterpillars seemed pretty mature, and I suspect they'll be going the chrysalis route pretty soon. The first caterpillar mostly had the milkweed to itself, while the second caterpillar was forced to share with a group of aphids. July 28, 2021 at Sourland Mountain Preserve Photo 148654450, (c) jpviolette, some rights reserved (CC BY...

Though these were all taken within 15 minutes of one another, it shows Monarch butterflies with various stages of wing health. First there's this individual, with perfect wings and vibrant colors. It's likely this is a relatively young individual. July 25, 2021 at Duke Farms Photo 148653086, (c) jpviolette, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC) The next Monarch seems to have intact wings, but has a more faded look. Butterfly wings have little scales on them, and when some of these are lost through normal wear and tear, their color fades. July 25, 2021 at Duke Farms Photo 148652861, (c) jpviolette, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC) Sometimes there's more tear than wear evident on butterfly wings. This individual not only looks a little faded, but has lost part of its wings. (While I long assumed the wings got torn while escaping from a predator, some butterfly watchers have said they suspect the wings are more likely torn while navigating through prickly plants.) July 25, 2021 at ...

In case you're thinking that the Plainsboro Preserve is all about the dragonflies I've been posting, there was also some butterfly action there too. First I met a Monarch butterfly getting a sip of nectar from what looks like Wild Bergamot , a very popular drinking spot for the pollinator community. July 23, 2021 at the Plainsboro Preserve And a little afterwards, I met this Eastern Tiger Swallowtail at another pollinator "watering hole", one of the Joe Pye Weeds . July 23, 2021 at the Plainsboro Preserve Photo 148594293, (c) jpviolette, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC) That pretty much wrapped up this trip to the Plainsboro Preserve, where I got lots of dragonfly pictures, a few butterfly pictures, and also got a slightly uncommon bird.

Usually when Monarchs breed, you'd expect princes and princesses to be the result. In the butterfly world, it (if all goes well) results in more butterflies. As adults, Monarch butterflies, aside from predator avoidance, have 2 primary goals: to drink nectar and to breed. This pair seems to be meeting both these goals. They are coupled together in the way they breed, and one of the butterflies appears to be drinking nectar too. I've seen butterflies, including Monarchs, coupled together in flight. It sounds like the males and the females sometimes disagree on how long the breeding should occur, and one (generally the female) may try and get on with their lives by flying away.  July 22, 2021 at Fairview Farm Photo 148400010, (c) jpviolette, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC)

This is a fairly common caterpillar, though this was the first one I saw this summer. It's a caterpillar of the Milkweed Tussock Moth , one of the numerous denizens of our local milkweed plants . As moths, they're a little on the plain side, but as caterpillars they look a little like an arts-and-crafts project made from pipe cleaners. Like most insects that use milkweed as a host plant, they're somewhere on the bad-tasting/poisonous side of the edibility spectrum. The caterpillar's unique look makes it easy for would-be predators to identify them as poisonous.  Since they're also considered to be poisonous as adult moths, I'm a little surprised they don't have a more distinctive look as adults. Instead of appearance, they apparently signal their unpalatability by making distinctive sounding ultrasonic clicking noises that bats recognize. They don't normally compete directly with Monarch butterfly caterpillars because while Monarch caterpillars prefer y...