Monarch Tagging- by Erin M.

On Wednesday, October 5th, the ninth grade River Fellows went to the Tennessee River

Gardens. The purpose of this trip was to catch and tag Monarch butterflies. At this time, Monarch

butterflies are migrating from all parts of North America down to Mexico. After a butterfly is

tagged, when it reaches its destination, its tag can be identified and reported back to whoever

tagged it.

The Tennessee River Gardens is a section of land along the Tennessee River that has

meadows and paths, as well as a butterfly garden that is maintained by Christine Bock, who works

for the Tennessee Aquarium.

Plants such as milkweed and many other flowering plants are in the

garden for the butterflies to eat, but the garden also has a focus on fostering caterpillars. Certain

types of caterpillars will only feed off of one type of plant, such as the monarch caterpillar, which

prefers milkweed. Part of the garden is screened in, which helps caterpillars’ chance of survival.

Inside the enclosure, many types of caterpillars were thriving off of their favored plant leaves. There

were even a few cocoons, some of which had already been used, and others that still housed a

caterpillar completing metamorphosis. This enclosure is important because most caterpillars will

not survive to adulthood due to predators, like birds.

After a quick tour of the butterfly garden, we went into the meadows of the River Garden to

look for butterflies to tag. There were many types of butterflies in the fields, though we did not find

any monarch butterflies.

However, we did find a monarch caterpillar feeding on the underside of a

small milkweed plant, along with several other species of caterpillars, which were later placed in the

screened-in section of the butterfly garden. As we looked for butterflies and caterpillars, we found a

few caterpillar eggs strewn about on plants. Some butterflies will only lay their eggs on certain

plants, and most butterflies only lay one egg per leaf.

The River Gardens also has an enclosed duck sanctuary, where many species of both exotic

and native ducks are kept. During our expedition, we were accompanied by a dog named Lucy, who

lives at the River Gardens. Though our trip was not successful in the terms of our original purpose,

we found lots of caterpillars and learned a lot about local species of butterflies and their life cycles.