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New Zealanders into tagging!

In most regions of NZ, enthusiastic Monarchists are tagging butterflies and releasing them into the wild.

They are part of a nationwide study to learn more about the overwintering habits of NZ’s Monarch butterflies. Data is to be processed by NZ scientist Dr Barrie Frost, now based at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, currently visiting Nelson.

Dr Frost is a world-renowned expert in sensory systems neuroscience, and takes advantage of new avenues of research, making transitions from excellent basic science to concrete and valuable applications. His pioneering work in sensory neuroscience has benefited from his observations of the natural world and his profound knowledge of neurobiology.

White tags, 5mm in diameter, are being applied to the hindwings of Monarchs all over NZ, and when they are spotted, the data is logged in to the website www.mb.org.nz. With each tag bearing a unique alphanumeric code, there are approximately another two thousand to be tagged.

“Our team has so far tagged about 7,500 Monarchs,” said Jacqui. “And so far had reports of about thirty recoveries.”

According to Dr Frost, in North America Monarch butterflies that emerge in the summer live about one month and tend to move only a limited distance.

“However Monarchs that emerge in the autumn, around about the autumn equinox, are quite different,” he said. “They don’t produce enough of the hormone to reach sexual maturity, and can live a surprising six or more months.”

He said that they also migratory and show a real urge to fly south-west to their overwintering site in Mexico.

“Around the spring equinox they finally become sexually active and then move north to around Texas and breed. It is their off-spring or even the next generation after that that finally reaches their northern limits.

He said that through the autumn tagging details of their long migratory journey was discovered.

“So it is extremely important for NZ monarch taggers to tag as many butterflies as possible over the next few weeks,” he said. “It is these butterflies that may be attempting to migrate north, and they are the most likely to travel the greatest distance.

He added that the Monarch population reaches its peak in the Autumn.

“Although the chances of locating these butterflies is small, it increases considerably if people can report in and monitor the clusters of Monarchs that form in late autumn and over the winter in large trees – often in parks or on golf courses.”

In these days of global warming and areas of wilderness being developed, more information is needed about NZ’s insect life – and the Lepidoptera species is probably the easiest for ‘citizen scientists’ to interact with.

It is hoped to continue the tagging over future years, and learn more about that ever-popular insect, the Monarch, in NZ.

ENDS

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