As we head into mid-July, our sightings of Monarchs and other butterflies should increase and with that is a wonderful opportunity to participate in raising and releasing Monarch butterflies.
Over the next few days, I will post some videos developed by the Monarch Larva Monitoring Project. Mona Miller and I taught three classes this past June on raising and releasing Monarchs but if you weren’t able to attend one of those, these online videos provide a lot of great information.
Email me if you have any questions or run into issues (Nicole Hamilton, nhamilton@loudounwildlife.org) or post a question on facebook to Monarch Watch or the Monarch Teachers Network – both pages have Monarch experts at the ready to answer questions.
If you raise and release Monarchs this summer and fall, please email me at the end of the season with your data (your location, dates released, and any photos that you’d like to share)
This video (7 minutes) tells you all you need to know to identify Monarch eggs and caterpillars. You learn about what an egg looks like and how to tell which “instar” (stage of development) the caterpillar is in:
Monarch eggs have a 1/2- football-like shape and have longitudinal ridges. Sometimes we see little milkweed sap drops and mistake those for eggs but alas, they will not hatch 😉