Okay, I just noticed I kept saying "wing" above, when it should have been "wings", because they have a pair of wings on each side! Monarch General (Hospital) is now open... That made me smile. After reading these websites, I've gotten very concerned about ensuring the healthiest butterflies possible. I've even fantasized about getting a microscope - hehe! My understanding is that OE is transmittted when the larvae eat the spores on infected leaves, sprinkled there by the female when she oviposits. In the future I am going to try to collects eggs only, and even remove them from the Asclepias leaf. Then I will use sterile equipment and try to collect the freshest and youngest milkweed leaves - and wash them thoroughly to (try to) remove any OE spores. OE is an interesting pathogen. Apparently it co-exists with the Monarch population worldwide. Obviously it has evolved over the millenia along with Danaus plexippus, and that makes me wonder if there are Monarchs that may have developed some resistence? Anyway, I'm still thrilled that this female was okay. Waiting for two more to eclose any minute!!

I'm going to add some comments here that I made on another thread to maybe clarify some of my opinions on OE. As always my thoughts are my opinions based on many years of actually doing, not just accepting what others say. So they are only FWIW to be taken as a person chooses to take them. IMO common logic dictates that like with most infestation, disease or infection, the level they intrude an individual at can vary widely from minor to massive. That is commonly proved out with OE in Danaidae. If a larvae makes it through complete metamorphosis to an imago that can eclose and form OK, even if OE is present it was a relatively minor infestation in that individual. The opposite being if a larva at any instar, pupa or adult that has OE dies without getting through complete metamorphosis, that individual was obviously infested at a much higher level. Unfortuanately no matter at what level (with OE especially), failure to destroy any sick livestock whether it be OE, another parasatoid, viral or bacterial infection in most cases will promote the spread of any of any of them to other individuals. OE is the prominent one that will carry on to generation after generation beyond a given brood, and nothing but complete elimination of any brood within your control that might be infected with it will help slow it down in a colony. Why in my opinion when it comes to livestock even suspected of possibly having OE it's not worth taking any chances with them "for the good of the species as a whole". For those of use who did/do field work with Lepidoptera, that includes wild Danaidae livestock found or adults netted that show any possibilty of hosting OE. NOTE: Even if you have a very strictly controlled gardening and rearing rigime (which I doubt any of you have), you won't eliminate all of any OE present. So don't go slap happy destroying everything in sight. Instead be analytical and logical, and then decide what is reasonable for your own circumstances. Yes, livestock can have OE and not show any of the so called "visible" signs of it, which IMO are not proof positive of OE anyway and can be from other causes. In part why on my OE thread I offered some habit and condition factors that could also suggest OE is present as well even though they also do not prove OE and can also be from other causes. Bottom line, to prove OE is NOT present in an individual for certain takes a microscope or loupe. And in almost all cases if a larvae it will have to be euthanized to test with any certainty. A possibility to check for OE in pupa is to test the purge of the last instar larva for OE, but unforunately that is not 100%. I'm a lot more scientific in my appraoch to Lepidoptera than all of the folks here, so I don't accept things at face value. I am also skeptical of data from other sources that are not proven to me. The Internet and publications commonly breed misinformation about everything, including Lepidoptera, that is passed on by ACE's who probably got it from another one. So it's prudent not to trust every thing you read on the Internet or in books if it's not from a source you trust. Larry

Thanks, Solstice98. Like I said, it only took me 30 minutes(LOL!). We've watched star-filled skies here since we were kids. I guess living in the country, away from city lights has it's advantages. I still know most of the constellations, and keep up with Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, & Saturn. Uranus and Neptune can sometimes be seen. I bought an adaptor for my Canon A-1 so that it fit my spotting scope. 15-60X, anything stronger moves too much without a motor to follow the movement across the sky. Several galaxies can be seen, some with the naked eye, and there are still some comets visible now with scopes. There won't be another major meteor shower until the latter part of April. OK! I'll stop, but I could go on and on and... Kt

I think the others should be ok. When I ran into this problem, I just seperated the infected one and the other made a sucessful enclosure! I bring in everyone, but I have tons of little jars going at the same time. I leave all cats I find in the same general area together, so as they are all similar sizes and habitat. We have great amounts of wasp mortality and parasitic losses so I bring everyone in. I often have lots of frozen cats that have become infected when I wait too long to get them inside :(. Do bleach the infected cage just to sterilize. Good luck with the test of the survivors