Monarchs in the Classroom

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Wing Condition:

All Lepidoptera lose scales throughout their lives, and if you touch the wings of many butterflies or moths, you will be able to see a fine patch of these scales on your fingers. Even though monarchs are tougher than many other species, and don’t lose many scales when you touch them, they do lose scales as they fly, attempt to mate, and brush against plants. It is thus possible to get a rough estimate of a monarch’s age by looking at how many scales it has lost.

We look carefully at the inside of the butterfly’s wings, and assess how bright they look, and whether scales are missing. We then assign the butterfly a wing condition score from 1 to 5.

	1: a newly emerged butterfly, with wings in perfect condition
	2: in very good condition, with very few scales lost
	3: a few patches of missing scales, wings are slightly dull
	4: large patches of missing scales, wings look quite dull compared to a new monarch
picture coming soon!	5: more than a third of the scales missing, wings look very dull and even transparent in spots

Wing Damage:

In some cases, monarchs may lose pieces of their wings when birds try to eat them, they get caught in something, or they bump into something. Since these pieces tend to be removed all at once, rather than wearing off gradually like scales, we measure wing damage separately from wing wear.

We hold the butterfly with all of its wings spread out, and look at the outer margins of each wing. We then assign it a wing damage score from 0 to 4.

	We would assign this butterfly a wing damage score of 0, because no pieces are missing from any of her wings.
	We would assign this butterfly a wing damage score of 4, because four of his wings have one or more pieces missing (even small nicks count).

continue on to Spore Load

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