Welcome to Florida! Such a lovely place. Plenty of room in sunny Florida. Any time of year, you can find it here. Relax, we are programmed to receive. You monarchs can check out any time you like, but you can never leave.
Each October migrating monarchs arrive in central Florida and immediately break diapause and begin breeding. But few tagged monarchs are spotted there except for those recently tagged in Florida. Nor are monarchs seen migrating north out of Florida in the spring. Hotel Florida appears to welcome new monarchs but they never leave. What’s that all about? Citizen scientists can help figure this out.
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Monarchs have been tagged since 1938 (long before the Mexican overwintering colonies were documented scientifically). In 1992, Monarch Watch began a tagging project that continues today. Millions of monarchs have been tagged and the database includes tens of thousands of recovered tags for the eastern subpopulation. It’s the eastern monarchs who occasionally end up in Florida. Some are migrants who travel down the eastern U.S. coast too late to fly across the Gulf of Mexico to their overwintering sites in the high mountains so they stay in Florida. Others seem to be heading through Florida then across the Gulf to Mexico. They arrive in time to move on south, but don’t leave.
Most of the fall migrating monarchs found in Mexico are in sexual diapause and don’t breed until warmer days of mid-February just before they begin their northward migration. However in Florida, the butterflies begin breeding right away after arriving. While the winter cold temperatures in central and northern Florida will kill monarchs, southern Florida is warm enough, has native and tropical milkweed, and ample nectar plants. Such a lovely place! Plenty of room in sunny southern Florida.
Scientists observe the Florida monarchs breeding two or three generations during winter and then pfft. The populations dwindle and none are seen migrating north. Maybe OE, a protozoan parasite, has built up enough among the winter-breeding monarchs to cause the decline in numbers. The highest OE infection rate of all three subpopulations (eastern, western, Florida/Caribbean) is in Florida — over 70 percent and it has remained constant for decades.
Dr. Chip Taylor, Director of Monarch Watch, is asking for help.
Recent reports indicate that a large number of monarchs are moving along the South Carolina coast. [Someone] is conducting a large scale tagging operation in the vicinity of Folly Beach, SC as he has done in years past. Curiously, while some of his tagged butterflies have been reported, mostly along the SC coast, the number sighted along the GA coast and FL is close to zero. It’s as if the butterflies in SC stop moving southward or perhaps there simply aren’t enough people seeing or reporting tagged butterflies in these regions of GA and FL.
If you are in Florida or southeastern coastal U.S. (SC and GA), watch for tagged monarchs. When you see one, try to spot the tag number using binoculars or a camera with telephoto lens. Look for dead tagged monarchs on the ground and save their tags. Report tag numbers to Monarch Watch online.
Even an animal as well-studied and popular as monarch butterflies still hangs onto secrets. Do they leave when no one is looking? Help solve the mystery of the monarch’s Hotel Florida.
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