northeast-flora-and-fauna

Meet a Small Milkweed Bug . Although I've talked about them a little in a post about the similar-looking False Milkweed Bug, it doesn't look like I've showed a picture of the Small Milkweed Bug. This is yet another example of insect aposematism , where their red coloring signals to potential predators that these bugs are poisonous. Presumably they acquire their poisonousness in the same way that Monarch butterflies, Large Milkweed Bugs, and Red Milkweed Beetles acquire theirs - they get it by eating poisonous milkweed plants. There's a lot to compare and contrast with the Small Milkweed Bug and their Large Milkweed Bug cousins. Though both love to eat the seed pods of milkweed plants, the SMB has been known to feed on other plants and to actually eat some insects on occasion (including Monarchs). And while LMBs have a migration strategy based on following the milkweed crops, the SMBs can overwinter as (dormant) adults. July 10, 2021 at Duke Farms Photo 148186194, (c) ...

This was the first Monarch butterfly I photographed in 2021. This is a little anticlimactic for 2 reasons: Since this time, I've taken many Monarch butterfly pictures. I think I had been spotting Monarchs for almost a month before this picture even though I missed getting a photograph for one reason or another. Notice that this Monarch isn't on a flower looking for nectar; it appears to be on a milkweed (probably Common Milkweed ) leaf. It's at least possible that this was a female looking to lay an egg on a milkweed leaf. (I didn't check this; it's possible that getting to the plant would have meant traipsing further into a meadow than I wanted.) July 10, 2021 at Duke Farms Photo 148186168, (c) jpviolette, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC)

Just to show you that Monarch Butterflies also like Joe Pye Weed , here's the evidence. The taxonomy of the Joe Pye Weeds has changed a bit in recent decades. My Newcomb's Wildflower Guide (generally considered a good book for keying out species of wildflowers) puts the Joe Pye Weeds in the same genus ( Eupatorium ) as the bonesets/thoroughworts. But it looks like these days the Joe Pye Weeds have been spun off into their own genus: Eutrochium . It's still recognized that these two genii of wildflowers are related though; they're still considered to be together in a monophyletic group . My book was copyrighted in 1977, so this classification change occurred sometime over the last 4 decades. August 18, 2020 at Duke Farms

Here's another Monarch Butterfly . While both butterflies and bees are important pollinators, their motivations are different. Bees (at least bumblebees and honeybees) need to gather both nectar and pollen to bring back for their offspring to eat, so they're transporting pollen from flower to flower on purpose. Fortunately for flowers, the bees end up pollinating the flowers when some of the pollen spills out in their travels. Butterflies on the other hand don't have a use for pollen. They're sustaining themselves by drinking nectar but get pollen on themselves that they accidentally transport to the next flower. My impression is that bees are considered better pollinators; their intentional collection of pollen means they usually carry more to the next flower, even if their intention is to bring all that pollen back to their larva. August 18, 2020 at Duke Farms

Here's another Monarch Butterfly imbibing in an afternoon drink. It looks like the watering hole is a thistle, quite possibly the invasive Canada Thistle . Though Canada Thistle doesn't belong in New Jersey, crowds out native species, and almost certainly degrades our ecosystems, to Monarchs they're still a fine place to drink a refreshing beverage. August 15, 2020 at Negri Nepote Native Grassland Preserve