Very interesting, Jane. I have a few questions. First, where was the monarch tagged and where are you? Secondly, did the lady tell you what the monarchs are in infected with? It seems the infection does not kill them immediately since so many survive to breed--and the one you saw had to travel some distance, no?

I was pleased to hear what she said about tropical milkweed. I have a lot of it and a lot of monarchs. I live in Central Florida and there are monarchs here every month of the year. If we have a hard freeze they will disappear for a few months, then they come back. When they do they come from the south, I believe.

I recently saw this video on Ted:

http://www.ted.com/talks/jaap_de_roode_how_butterflies_self_medicate?utm_source=newsletter_daily&utm_campaign=daily&utm_medium=email&utm_content=button__2015-02-09

To summarize the video poorly in a few words--monarchs tend to prefer tropical milkweed over some other types of milkweed. The man concluded that this was because the tropical milkweed had a stronger toxin in it and helped the new monarchs to survive.

Tom. I live in Sarasota, Florida. The tagged butterfly was in my garden.

Thank you for that link. Very interesting. I saved it to pass on. It seems to confirm what I was told by the woman who responded to my call regarding the tag.

The Monarch I found was released by someone in Sarasota. He lives two miles away. It was a male. She provided his address and phone #.

The Butterflies are infected with a disease called OE. The University of Georgia and U Florida are running a combined study to see how prevalent it is and how the butterflies are affected. They want people to swab the newly emerged butterfly before releasing and send the swab to them. They want the butterfly tagged so it can be tracked (if possible). But they will get a better idea how prevalent this disease is. Right now they state that 85% of Monarchs in the South are infected.

They also want to find out if any of the southern monarchs will head north. They suspect a large number of northern monarchs might be wintering in the southern states rather than migrating all the way to Mexico. Their statistics show that the southern states have warmed over the years moving further north and that the monarchs who would have travelled to Mexico stayed in the US south.

She sent a lot of info but it is in power-point and I don't know how to link it here.

If you want to email me, I'll be happy to forward the info I received.

Jane

Don't see how to email you, Jane. There doesn't seem to be an email attached to any of our names. I think that I understand most of what she said to you, however.

There are a number of questions that come to mind still. One that you mentioned is how far do the monarchs travel? The fact that the one you found traveled two miles away is encouraging. It shows that at least some don't stick around in the same yard and this allows some diversity in the gene pool. I suspect that some travel much further. When we get a hard freeze the monarchs will disappear completely here and then come back a few month later. This leads me to believe that the freeze kills monarch in all stage of life here and the ones that I see afterwards come from down south--and that would be many miles away.

I found this article about OE. I found it to be quite informative. One of these days someone will come up with a way to kill this parasite, but for now it seems that our monarchs will just have to live with them.

My neighbor told me yesterday that she seen one that morning in her yard. We couldn't believe it. I love the idea that they may be staying around the south but saddened that they are dying from this disease. I will keep on the look out for them.

Tom, I realize my email is no longer attached to my name. This new Houzz has changed everything. If anyone knows how to change things back to the way GW had it, please post it. Again, thanks for the link as it put things into words which make it more 'understandable.'
Jane

When you click on Your Houzz, go to Edit Profile on top right. Click on Advanced Settings on left. Look under Email notifications to set it up for any email notifications. Then under Privacy Settings below to select who can message you (I checked so anyone can). I think you check for messages by clicking Messages, although I haven't seen any there yet. I haven't tried to send any messages yet...maybe we have to click on other person's user name? Not sure. Very confusing!

Jane, will she send tags to people in the Gulf Coast region to tag newly emerged butterflies?

I have linked the ability to message me to my user name (hope it works!).

K