Hello USA-NPN,
Our Desert Refuge: Monarchs and Milkweeds in Arizona project is coming to a close for southern and central Arizona. If you are still seeing monarchs, you are welcome to continue to record data, as these observations are valuable to our understanding of monarchs in the state. However, we asked for a winter time commitment to better understand overwintering behavior, and you all provided that! For those in northern Arizona, where the milkweeds and monarchs are now becoming active, we would love to have you start recording data!
Below, we take a look at what we learned from your data from the past nine months, and share next steps for this project. Thank you so much for taking part in this effort to help us better understand overwintering behavior of monarchs and the milkweeds on which they depend!
Photos below of rush (desert milkweed) flowers or flower buds and open flowers at the University of Arizona. On the left, can you find the tiny monarch caterpillar in the lower cluster of flowers? On the right, flower visitation by an adult monarch.
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