A symbol of the soul and an indication of nature’s health
It’s a miraculous process! We mostly notice the end product, i.e., the beautiful, brilliantly colored orange, black, and white monarch butterfly (Danaus plexippus). It begins as an egg, hatches as a caterpillar that eats a lot of milkweed, molts several times and, when it’s time, fashions a green chrysalis flecked with gold around itself, hangs out awhile, and finally emerges as a full-grown butterfly.
Wow! Such beauty strangely appearing. No wonder butterfly appearances caused some early Christians to consider the butterfly a symbol of the soul. Others thought it the spirit of the dead.
Samantha Parker has a passion for monarch butterflies. She has been raising them for 18 years, beginning in Coconut Creek, Florida. Since 2004 she has raised them at Ascension Living Alexian Village as part of her work as Activities Director, Resident Services. There she has enthused many residents to grow milkweed in their private spaces.
She distributes milkweed seeds and plants at Alexian in April. Residents grow the milkweed. In summer, monarchs appear and lay their eggs. Resulting caterpillars are then collected and placed in a mesh and plastic cage containing their needed milkweed plants for food. This affiliation with milkweed provides each monarch caterpillar a toxin that is poisonous to would-be predators. The cage is cleaned every day to avoid parasites.
Around 14 days later each caterpillar begins to form its chrysalis. In 8–13 more days the metamorphosis is complete. A monarch breaks out, dries its wings, and is ready to fly. While monarch caterpillars can only survive on milkweed plants, full-grown monarchs can now pollinate and get nectar from any flower. Last year 200 monarchs were raised and released from Alexian.
Monarchs are not the most prevalent butterflies in our area. Through summer and fall, butterfly watchers may identify up to 50 species. Still, monarchs seem to be a symbolic species for the health of all butterflies, most likely because of their relatively large size, their beauty, and their awe-inspiring migration story.
Monarchs can fly 50–100 miles per day at a sailing speed of about 5.5 miles per hour. They flew up to 3000 miles last fall to Mexico from as far north as Canada. About now, successors will make the trip northward looking for milkweed. When they start, it looks like butterfly confetti. Scientists are still asking how they know when to leave and where to go.
The population of butterflies—including monarchs—is in decline, along with all other insects. Reasons are many, but it’s likely mostly due to agricultural practices that include pesticide and herbicide applications to crops, loss of natural habitat buffer zones adjacent to crops, loss of habitat due to urban sprawl, and severe storms.
For monarchs, it’s loss of milkweed too. Monarchs can survive only on milkweed during caterpillar stage. Being too picky is not good for population survival. Less picky species do better. Humans and rats come to mind.
Climate change may be having impacts. Warming temperatures may change the timing of milkweed growth. If milkweed can’t grow in blistering temperatures, then there will be no monarchs. Then, too, why migrate if milkweed grows all year round in warmer temperatures? Monarchs require body temperature of 86° F. to fly.
There are several milkweed species in the genus Asclepias. It’s a useful plant. True, it supports monarchs, but Native Americans treated asthma and dysentery with the roots, made fishing line and thread with the leaves, and used the seedpods’ silky material to absorb papoose waste. Most are edible after boiling.
Do you want to see a live monarch butterfly? To view them indoors, visit the Tennessee Aquarium butterfly garden. Outdoors, the Tennessee Valley Chapter of the North American Butterfly Association has scheduled 11 butterfly counts beginning April 18 and ending Sept. 5. Contact Bill Haley at the Tennessee Aquarium for more information.
Butterflies can also be seen at the Pollinator Garden at the Hawthorne Road entrance to South Chickamauga Creek Greenway. School groups can visit the TN River Gardens Butterfly Pavilion by appointment only.
For personal sightings and to help monarchs, plant milkweed now. Reward your soul in the summer with the natural joy of butterflies as they flutter by.
Sandra Kurtz is an environmental community activist, chair of the South Chickamauga Creek Greenway Alliance, and is presently working through the Urban Century Institute. You can visit her website to learn more at enviroedu.netw