Here’s what I did.  Obviously I put on some gloves in case he was infected.  I took a piece of clear Scotch tape, and placed it across his abdomen.  I then removed the tape and placed it under my mini-microscope (which I purchased from this location Live Monarch.com).  From a scientific point of view it was pretty fascinating observing the results.  After staring through this microscope for at least 20 minutes and trying to be as precise as possible, I couldn’t really detect any significant OE spores.  As best I can tell, I counted at most 3 “brownish” looking little football things (description of the OE spore) but couldn’t detect any significant infection.  Even the 3 “brown things” I saw I couldn’t tell if it was the spore, or perhaps some color from his wing I might have taken off with the tape.

So, since he didn’t appear to be infected, I took Alvin out to the Butterfly Bush to get some nectar.  Perhaps I traumatized him from playing doctor because he just continued to sit there for a couple of hours and didn’t appear to drink (he was moving around and was still stretching his wings).

Suddenly this little (when I say little, it was the smallest Monarch I’ve ever seen) “floozy” came flying by, apparently attracted to Alvin’s good looks.  Unfortunately for her, the mad scientist (that’s me!) was observing Alvin when she landed on the Butterfly Bush.  I caught her (she looked pretty worn out, colors faded) and took her in for testing as well.  She passed the test, so I released her.

On the other hand, poor Alvin must still be a little young for dating since he didn’t seem to much care for this female who flew by.

To put an end to this long winded story, since it was getting late and I wanted to make sure Alvin was fully rested before moving on to wherever, I brought him inside for the night and I’ll release him tomorrow.

Guess what?!!  As best I can tell, he doesn’t appear infected.  I’ll provide the details on how I did the testing on the next post.

So, without further delay, I’d like to introduce Alvin (since he was the first Monarch born from Timothia, and a male, and the first letter of the alphabet is A..well you get the idea)

It's Alive, It's Alive!

On the positive side, this simple little butterfly brought an amazing amount of joy, and learning.  To recap, this was a butterfly who I found fluttering in the pool.  I took her out and placed her in a butterfly cage.  Unfortunately her wings never unfurled.  I tried slowly opening them, and moistening them, but there were already dried in their curled up form.  Over the next few days I would take her out to the Milkweed and Butterfly Bush to allow her to sip on some nectar.  She loved the Butterfly Bush and would often drink the nectar for 30 minutes at a time.

Fortunately my neighbor is also a butterfly gardening convert so she would come over during the day and take Timothia out to feed.  Keep in mind, most Monarch butterflies live on 3-6 weeks and their sole purpose is to migrate and mate.  About a week after I found Timothia I get a frantic call from my neighbor saying that she took Timothia out to the Butterfly Bush and suddenly another monarch swooped down, attached himself to her, and flew off!  So, Timothia, who would under normal circumstances would never have been able to fly, was suddenly flying around the backyard and mating.

Lucky for me, Timothia (who was named Timmy until this event) and her mate landed and were both placed in the butterfly cage.  The next day that poor male butterfly was fluttering all around probably wondering just what the heck he got himself in to, so I released him.  Then came yet another big surprise.  A day after mating, Timothia started laying eggs on the milkweed, lots of them!  Long story short, Timothia lived 3 weeks, was hand fed almost 5 times a day, briefly found a mate, had a chance to fly, produced at least 150 eggs, and never had to be chased by any predator.

All in all, it was sad making the decision to put Timothia to rest. That being said, I never would have thought that such a simple little insect, pretty ugly from a Monarch point of view, would give me a chance to learn about butterflies and Life in such a short period of time.  For that, I am truly grateful