Editorial of September 26, 2024

Editorial: Keeping the Monarchs in Our Glens

It’s the end of September and the end of summer, but, happily, it’s not yet the end of the monarch butterflies, who right now are abandoning us for warmer parts south. These beautiful creatures, native to North America, exist around the globe, save for a few very cold climates. They are abundant here, during the summer, in upstate New York, bobbing across our fields, flitting about our gardens and pollinating our landscapes. They possess two pairs of orange-red wings covered with black veins and white spots that resemble stained glass and they have a wingspan of around four inches. They lay their eggs on milkweed, only milkweed, a plant that is toxic to animals and humans, and their larvae eat the leaves when they hatch. Adult monarchs live, for the most part, four to five weeks, and those in the Midwest and east of the United States undergo a magnificent and complicated migration to Mexico for the winter. They are known scientifically as Danaus plexippus, which is Greek for “sleepy transformation,” and refers to their ability to hibernate and metamorphize. Although here in New York the nine-spotted ladybird beetle, commonly known as a ladybug, is the state insect, the monarch is the state insect of Alabama, Idaho, Illinois, Minnesota, Texas, Vermont and West Virginia.