Tag Archives: OE

Nature vs. The Laundry Room

Posted by Lesley on April 29, 2011 1 comments

Last year, my butterfly observation took place indoors-in my laundry room to be more specific.  I lost a couple caterpillars and a butterfly and wondered how or if my involvement played a part.  One of the chrysalises fell to the ground, and I strung it back up.  This was an example of good interference; the butterfly emerged happy and healthy. 

But there’s always the possibility of unintended bad interference from an indoor environment.  So this time around, I wanted to truly observe-hands off.  It was a promising start from the caterpillars to the first chrysalis.

Now for the bad news…out of six chrysalises, only two became healthy Monarch butterflies.  Out of the three chrysalises outside of the milk crate, only one survived.  And although all three chrysalises inside the milk crate survived, only one produced a health butterfly.  My outcome was actually much better in the laundry room – three healthy butterflies from four chrysalises.  Outside the milk crate, the only success came from under the windowsill.

I didn’t see the butterfly emerge…of course!  Only the empty chrysalis remained when I got home.  The two chrysalises that attached under the eave of the roof didn’t last more than a day.  One ended up crushed on the brick path.  Either the wind or a bird must have knocked it down.  How it got crushed?  I can’t bear to think on it too much, but I did check the bottom of my sneakers and they looked clean.      

The other chrysalis stayed in place but was attacked by something.  John suggested a spider, and I can’t rule it out. 

I’ve let the spider webs get out of control because they’re disgustingly fascinating.  They trapped a lizard!  So now on top of gross fascination, I’m too freaked out to pull them down.   

But no matter what it was that initially attacked the chrysalis, the ants were what finished it off.

As for the three chrysalises inside the milk crate, two of the butterflies emerged infected with Ophryocystis elektroscirrha (OE).  OE is a parasitic spore that can infect the caterpillars or chrysalises…more to come on that in a future post. 

Miniature Monarchs

Posted by Lesley on August 12, 2010 None comments

My mom forgave me for telling the world what an animal hater she is and sent me an interesting email about butterflies, which she does not hate.  While visiting Rainbow’s End Butterfly Farm and Nursery recently, she chatted up the owner about the size of butterflies.  I mentioned that it seemed as if butterflies in New York are bigger than butterflies in Florida.  The owner of Rainbow’s End said this could be due to a common disease amongst monarchs.  Under New York law, she is permitted to export butterflies to Florida but is prohibited from importing them because of a disease commonly found in Florida monarchs. 

During my laundry room experiment, I remember reading about a disease called OE – Ophryocystic Elektroscirrha.  OE is a protozoan parasite unique to monarchs and milkweed, and it does indeed cause monarchs to be smaller in size, specifically they weigh less and have shorter forewings.  While Googling OE, I came across another butterfly farm, Shady Oak.  They have a page called Ask Edith; Edith is one of the owners and she addressed a question about OE.  Apparently, it’s more common in Florida because butterflies fly year-round and plants don’t freeze to the ground, so the cycle never ends.  In colder climates, spores die as the milkweed disintegrates in the winter.  In the warmest part of Florida, the southern tip, there is approximately an 85% infection rate compared with 30% or less in the rest of the country.  

After reading up on OE and its symptoms, it seems that I prematurely blamed the ants when it was probably OE that took my third and final butterfly baby.  Another symptom is that they’re too weak to hold onto the pupal case while their wings unfurl.  But to end on a happier note, here’s a photo of a beautiful female monarch warming its wings on the banks of the Hudson River.