TAKING WING


 


 Catepillars


discovered on milkweed


secret ingredient of the monarch migration. Using visual and chemical clues, the female monarchs hone in on milkweed   cement, brick, tile, and plastic. They drum their feet, covered in chemoreceptors, to taste the plant’s suitability, like a mom  female tips her body, curls her abdomen, and deposits, with a tiny bit of glue, a small egg on the underside of a milkweed leaf. Though an average female will lay 300 to 500 eggs, she typically only lays one egg per plant. This ensures a plentiful feast for each of her hatched caterpillar children. And not just any feast. Milkweed plants are toxic to most


herbivores, yet for monarchs the heart-stopping poison em- bedded in the plant is an opportunity. Eating the leaves, the caterpillars sequester the cardenolide toxins in their own bodies, appropriating the milkweed’s defense as their own. When the caterpillars metamorphose, the adult monarchs are


bright orange. An aposematic warning to potential predators  My eyes still in training, I searched each mile of the road-


         - ing. Yet with each passing mile the world’s details revealed themselves, and I began to discern individuality among the roadside’s many shades of green. Like a female monarch ab- sorbed in her task, I hunted for milkweed and stopped to   Milkweed, a piece of the prairie puzzle, once covered the Midwest. Now milkweed is an anomaly, evicted by our igno-


A much welcomed gift of icecream along the way


59


© Rachael Bonoan


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