Monarch butterfly: Facts about the iconic migratory insects Erin Banks Rusby
With their bright orange hues and lengthy migration, monarch butterflies (
Danaus plexippus) are one of the world s most iconic insects. But their population has steadily dropped in recent decades as they face habitat loss and other threats.
Monarch butterfly life cycle
Monarchs go through four life stages: egg, larva, pupa and adult.
They can mate several times, sometimes for 16 hours at a time, after which the female immediately starts laying eggs on milkweed plants, according to Monarch Joint Venture (MJV), a non-profit partnership of organizations that facilitate monarch conservation. Monarch eggs are about the size of a pinhead and are football shaped, with vertical ridges, said Laura Lukens, the national monitoring coordinator for. The eggs are off-white to yellow in color.
Monarch butterfly: Facts about the iconic migratory insects
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Minnesota solar farms double as massive pollinator gardens
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Pollinator-friendly landscape takes root beneath solar panels in Minnesota
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Sheep graze through the tall prairie grass, their bleats breaking the quiet as butterflies and insects flit through the native flowers.
The pastoral setting is not a restored prairie. It s a solar installation in rural Chisago County one of the 16 in Minnesota run by Enel Green Power, a global renewable energy company based in Rome that supplies Xcel Energy.
In Minnesota, at least, the solar farms are generating more than electricity. Instead of turf, bare ground or gravel, the land beneath Enel s Minnesota installations were all seeded with native pollinator-friendly grasses, sedges and wildflowers. They ve matured into rich native habitats for bees, insects and butterflies in a landscape desperately short of them.