Monarch butterfly—from chrysalis to flight...

In a post earlier this summer, I mentioned a monarch butterfly had found our little milkweed stand. I had hoped she would return and lay an egg...and she did! She (and maybe a few of her sisters) laid many eggs. We've counted 11 caterpillars so far in our backyard monarch nursery, and the first went from chrysalis to flight Tuesday afternoon...

When the caterpillar first forms a chrysalis, it is a light jade green. After about 9 days, it starts to darken until finally it is crystal clear and you can see the butterfly locked inside. When you see the Monarch's orange and black wings clearly through the pupal case, get ready to welcome a butterfly into the world. (Our butterfly emerged about 10 minutes after I took this photo.)

A newly emerged monarch butterfly dangles from its pupal case (10:41 a.m.). Her wings are wrinkled and wet. She must expand the wings by pushing hemolymph (bug blood) into the wing veins.

Butterflies secrete a liquid to help soften the chrysalis (pupal case) so they can emerge (eclose). You can still see droplets of the liquid inside the chrysalis. 

As the wings straighten out and harden, the butterfly starts to climb higher and away from the spent chrysalis (12:21 p.m.). 

Our new monarch butterfly hangs from a milkweed leaf clearly chewed and eaten away by a monarch caterpillar (maybe by her two weeks earlier).

The wings continue to straighten and harden. It's been a little over two hours since the butterfly emerged (12:50 p.m.). 

 Her wings are considerably harder and straighter...she's gorgeous, but she still hangs tight, not moving. The black and white polka dots on her head, thorax, and wing tips are just as striking as the orange color in her wings. 

Like a toddler beginning to walk, our newly emerged monarch flaps her wings for the first time (1:03 p.m.). It's been almost 2.5 hours since she broke out of the pupal case.

Finally, almost another hour later, at 1:58, she is ready to try her wings. I switched over to video to capture her flight. 
I knew it would be soon...

Monarch Butterfly's First Flight from Kelly Riccetti on Vimeo.

What a crazy ride...
I had read it usually takes monarch butterflies about an hour to go from emergence to flight, but our little girl took almost 3.5 hours. She dawdled, and grew stronger, and dawdled some more. The longer wait gave me time to really think about the process of metamorphosis, and I'm glad for it. The more I thought about what was happening, the more amazed I was. I had been reading about the process of metamorphosis since I was a kid, but I had never witnessed every stage...from egg, to all the larval instars, to the chrysalis, to emergence and flight. It's an outrages process...and immensely cool to witness.

Monarch development at a glance...
Here is a quick timeline to get a feel for how long it takes to go from egg to butterfly. Monarchs undergo complete metamorphosis and have four stages of life—egg, larva (the caterpillar stage), pupa (the chrysalis stage), and adult.

Egg (3-6 days) 
Female Monarchs lay a single egg on a milkweed leaf (the only plant monarch caterpillars can eat). The eggs hatch in 3-6 days.

Caterpillar (9-15 total days in the larval stage; 5 instars, each lasting 2-3 days) 
When the egg hatches, the caterpillar is so small it's hard to see, but it grows very fast. Soon it can no longer fit in its skin, so it sheds its skin and continues to grow. Each time a caterpillar sheds is called an instar. Monarch caterpillars go through 5 instars before they are full grown.

Chrysalis (9-14 days in the pupal stage)
When the caterpillar is full grown, it finds a safe place to pupate, often roaming up to 20-30 feet away. It creates a tiny silk mat on the underside of the leaf and then attaches itself to the mat with its cremaster (the hooklike tip of the pupa). It then sheds its skin for the last time. Under the skin is a light green casing called a chrysalis. At first it is soft, but within an hour it hardens to a protective shell. Now is when the magic begins...one of the transformations going on within the casing is the change of mouthparts from chewing (caterpillars chew milkweed leaves) to drinking (butterflies sip nectar through their straw-like tongue called a proboscis). Additionally, legs change, eyes change, and wings sprout. For 9-14 days the caterpillar totally transforms into a butterfly ready to take to the sky.

Butterfly (Adult: 1-4 hours after emerging can fly, 4-7 days later can mate, dies 2-6 weeks later)
When a butterfly cracks open the chrysalis, it emerges (ecloses) with wet, crumpled, and useless wings. It takes 1-4 hours for the wings to straighten, harden and dry. It is at its most vulnerable now because it is helpless and can't fly. Just 4-7 days after taking flight, butterflies are ready to mate...and start the process all over. Adult butterflies born in the summer don't migrate and live for 2-6 weeks. Those that are born at the end of summer do not mate and lay eggs. They can't survive here in the winter, so they put their energy into migrating (to Mexico) until spring when they return north to mate and lay eggs. "Winter" monarchs live 7-9 months.

For details on the Monarch's lifecycle, click here for a page from the Monarch Butterfly Fund, and here for the National Wildlife Federation's page.

Monarch camouflage—disruptive coloration and warning coloration (with Müllerian mimicry)
There are many types of camouflage in the animal kingdom, and the monarch butterfly exhibits two. You would think the black and white polka dots on a monarch's head, thorax and wing tips would draw attention to it, but it's just the opposite. The black and white dots create a disruptive coloration that acts as camouflage. The disruptive coloration breaks up the outline of the butterfly's head, making it more difficult to see.

In an opposite fashion, the bright orange attention-drawing color in the monarch's wings is a warning coloration meant to convince birds and other predators to shy away. Monarchs are toxic from their larval diet of milkweed leaves, and birds quickly learn to ignore the horrible-tasting butterflies, making the incredibly noticeable color its camouflage. Monarchs also exhibit Müllerian mimicry, where two equally toxic species mimic each other to the benefit of each, enhancing their "scare appeal!" The viceroy butterfly looks similar to a monarch but is also unpalatable. Previously, the viceroy was thought to exhibit Batesian mimicry (where butterflies not as toxic mimic the monarch for protection), but in 1991 it was proven that viceroys were just as unpalatable as monarchs, and they mimic each other for mutual protection.  Click here for the article, "The viceroy butterfly is not a batesian mimic," by David B. Ritland and Lincoln P. Brower in the journal Nature, for details, or click here for an article titled, "Mutual Mimicry: Viceroy and Monarch," by Kara Rogers on the Encyclopedia Britannica Blog.

Prequel...the caterpillar!
If you want to see a monarch caterpillar, click here for the prequel to this post.

Killdeer nest on the north green...

We finally have a nesting pair of Killdeer at the office! Larry spotted the nest a week or so ago, and I photographed the bird and the eggs on May 20. We set up a ring of orange cones around the nest to keep the evil lawnmower man from inadvertently running over it. I checked the nest over the weekend, and Momma Killdeer is still attending her four eggs...

Momma Killdeer keeping a watchful eye on the nest.

Killdeer usually lay four eggs in a nest that is nothing more than a scrape in the dirt. They love gravelly areas, so it was no surprise our couple placed their nest near the rocky swale leading to the detention pond. Killdeer are not timid birds, and they don't shy away from human habitation. They often nest in gravel along parking lots and sidewalks. Last June I photographed a Killdeer couple that nested at the Lindner Family Tennis Center...right in the middle of the action (click here if you want to read about that encounter).

Four Killdeer eggs hidden in plain sight. 

The cryptic coloration pattern on the eggs provides camouflage. If you don't know exactly where to look, the eggs are nearly invisible. Killdeer are members of the plover family, which makes them shorebirds, but you don't have to go to the shore to see them. They love short grass, meadows, gravelly driveways and roadsides, golf courses, and even construction areas. They do like to be near water, however, and our slow-moving little stream seems to do the trick (yeah, little stream!). It's easy to distinguish Killdeer from other plovers because they have two black breast bands and a red eye ring. You would think this plumage coloration would make them easy prey for predators, but the black bands provide disruptive coloration, an effective camouflage pattern for rocky and gravelly terrain.

Two black breast bands and a red eye ring distinguish adult Killdeer from other plovers.

Killdeer move on the ground like other plovers, running in short bursts and then stopping suddenly. If you get too close to the nest, one of the nesting pair will exhibit a broken-wing distraction display. You know you're too close to the nest if you see the bird flopping around like it has a broken wing while uttering a pitiful cry. The adult is trying to lead you away from the nest. I didn't get a photo of the broken-wing distraction display because I used my long lens and was far away. I didn't want to disturb the couple because I wanted to make sure they would stick around. Click here for the tennis center post mentioned earlier, which has an example of the broken-wing behavior.

After a short mad dash, our little Killdeer pauses to look around.

I can never resist that beautiful red eye ring!

Killdeer chicks are precocial, which means when they hatch their eyes are open, and they are ready for business! Unlike robins, cardinals, sparrows, and other common songbirds that hatch blind, featherless, and unable to feed themselves (altricial), Killdeer chicks hatch with fluffy feathers, and they are up, moving, and ready to eat on their own as soon as their feathers dry. Precocial birds stay in the egg twice as long as altricial songbirds, which usually hatch in about two weeks. Our little Killdeer hatchlings won't make an appearance until they have incubated for about 25 days. Until then, the orange cones will stay on the north green...

Stay away lawnmower man (as well as raccoons, opossums, skunks, foxes, squirrels, and even mice...all predators of the ground nesting Killdeer).

An Eastern Box Turtle among a flurry of autumn leaves...

Thursday afternoon found me along the Little Miami Bike Trail. Trees were dripping with water from an earlier shower, and the pavement was wet. Each gust of wind that raced through the branches brought down a flurry of golden-colored leaves, and the crisp energy of Autumn danced everywhere...

Eastern Box Turtle, Terrapene carolina carolina

Amid the tumult and excitement of our first "autumn-y" day, this male boxer lumbered across the paved bike trail oblivious to the dangers around him. When I spotted him I said, "Hurry up little guy. A biker isn't going to see you hidden in these leaves!" I barely saw him, and I was walking slowly, limping along with my flat-tire of an ankle. He was partially obscured by one of the recent leaf flurries, and although he seemed to feel secure, he was a disaster in the making--for himself and any biker who ran over him!

When I picked him up and moved him to the woods on the other side of the trail, he pulled back into his shell and partially closed his hinged plastron (lower shell). This defensive move is how he got his name. A simple "Boo!" on my part would probably have been enough to make him completely draw up the hinged parts of his plastron and securely "box" himself in.

...leaves scattered across the Little Miami Bike trail blended with the boxer's shell and hid him from view.

The carapace (upper shell) of an Eastern Box Turtle exhibits classic camouflage patterns...cryptic (invisibility by blending in), disruptive razzle-dazzle (eye-catching colors that confuse size, shape and number of objects in a group), and even countershading (lighter colors that appear in normally darker areas and vice-versa, distorting depth perception). Click here for a Wikipedia entry on the theory of camouflage.

...stay safe boxer man!