The next meeting of the SEWAREN BUTTERFLY CLUB will be held on Saturday, November 11, 2000 at the LIBRARY, 546 West Avenue, starting promptly at 10:00 A.M.

The meeting started with a brief discussion about two caterpillars that were brought in. We could not make positive identification of either one, although one of them might be the tomato hornworm. We did not have a very good netting or tagging season. Approximately 300 were tagged between the migrators and the ones we reared. Those in attendance were given the opportunity to choose a picture from twelve different butterflies found in the Middlesex County area. The project will be to research the butterfly, color it, and give a short synopsis at the November meeting. Being the monarch season has just about come to an end, it is time to start familiarizing ourselves with other species of butterflies that make appearances locally. There were a great variety observed in the garden by various individuals, but all they could give me were colors. As we know, by looking in the books, there are many butterflies and moths with similar colors. Hopefully, by the time spring rolls around, most of us will be able to identify most of what we see.

Our congratulations to Jean Gall for capturing a tagged monarch on her butterfly bush. The tag number was 347 UW. She accomplished this on September 30th at 3:30 PM. The weather was sunny with the temperatures in the mid 70's. This is the first time, in my 13 years of tagging, that someone locally has done this. We have notified Monarch Watch, but as of this printing we haven't heard from them as to where and by whom it was tagged. When we receive this info we will publish it in a future issue. Just for the record, Jean did re-release the butterfly.

You might want to check out website:
http://go.to/4thgrade
When the site comes up, click on Classroom News. Jillian Gall and Gina Rutherford have a nice article pertaining to their monarch experiences.

North American Monarch Butterfly Overwintering Locations
THE MIGRATION PHASE OF THIS INCREDIBLE INSECT
Entomologists divide the migrating populations of Monarch Butterflies into two groups, one west of the continental divide which is considered too high for the butterflies to fly over, and all the territory eastward including Florida. The eastern and western migrating Monarch undergoes a chemical change delaying sexual maturity, allowing the butterflies to wait out the winter in large colonies south of the freeze line which have been found in Mexico and California. They only mate when they return north, living as long as nine months in the process.
No one in Florida has found a winter resting site where Monarch Butterflies congregate in numbers as they do in the roost found in Mexico and California, but the butterflies are actively present all winter nonetheless.
Our observation is that Florida's population which certainly numbers in the millions of overwintering butterflies is continually breeding all winter and is apparently missing the chemical signature of its cousins east of the Rockies that migrate into Mexico and remain inactive throughout the winter in roosts, a number of which have now been located and protected.
Are there reasons for the differences in behavior other than climatic? Are there in fact two different survival strategies? Are the populations different in some other respect?
The general publicity always sites the huge roosts in Mexico as the Monarch Butterfly's overwintering destination without noting that Florida is home to many millions of overwintering Monarchs and, as well, in Southern California and along the Gulf Coast of Texas, there are known breeding populations throughout the winter months.
REPRINTED WITH PERMISSION FROM;      
Dale and Peggy McClung (Florida Monarchs)
http://www.floridamonarch.com

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