Monarchs

Yesterday a sibling and I (exhausted from the frog and toad survey the night before) went to a Monarch class at the University of Minnesota-St. Paul campus. Lucky for everyone, most of the class was hands on experiences which made it easier to stay awake.  We learned how to identify monarch eggs, the five stages of larvae, and the pupae.  Every time someone said pupae I wanted to giggle.  Each stage of the larvae is called an instar.  Don't confuse it with the navigation device called Onstar, they're different.  The first caterpillar that comes out of the egg is called instar 1.  The last stage, the caterpillar that changes into a pupae, is called instar 5.  We learned how to identify each of the five instars.  The caterpillar in the photo I took is an instar 5.  I know this because the tentacles on the head are long and droopy.  In the afternoon we went out to the gardens off Cleveland and Larpenteur to find eggs and isntars on milkweed plants.  We also learned how to estimate the density of milkweed plants in a field.  Now we know enough about monarchs to participate in the Monarch Larvae Monitoring Project.  All we need is a location that we can access weekly through the summer and fall that has at least 10 milkweed plants.  So I went home and counted all the milkweed plants on my property.  Success!  I found 20 plants.  I even found a monarch egg on one of the plants.  I brought the monarch egg inside and I hope to be able to watch it grow up to be a butterfly.  What a great citizen science volunteer job for me - check the 20 milkweed plants on my property every week and look for eggs and instars and pupae and butterflies.  Sounds great to me.