The monarch butterfly life cycle begins with a whirl of wings in the heat of the summer sun. As a female monarch sips nectar from a wildflower, a male hovers nearby. A pheromone is released from tiny ...

An expert has confirmed what backyard gardeners and amateur naturalists have been saying for weeks: There are fewer monarch butterflies in Illinois this summer. At the national Monarch Larva ...

Our neighbor Mary has a small patch of milkweed behind her potting shed. It’s shaded by a young sassafras tree, and some Japanese stilt grass is pushing its way in as well. We use neighbor John and ...

Nine monarch caterpillars that emerged late in the season would have faced certain death had an Evergreen Park man not ...

Yes, we have monarch butterflies in the Inland Northwest, but they aren’t common. Monarch butterflies are an iconic representative for pollinator conservation. Much has been written about preserving ...

My life took an unexpected turn a week and a half ago when a friend of mine ended up having an unplanned hip replacement. Would I take care of her monarch butterfly nursery while she was laid up? Of ...

Every Monday in August, Heidi Emmons is leading a group of citizen scientists into fields containing milkweed to count monarch caterpillars and eggs. The goal is to learn more about how monarch ...

The late Isaac Asimov said that the most exciting phrase in science is not “eureka!,” but “that’s funny.” David De La Mater experienced one of those exciting Asimov moments when he was going over data ...

If you have noticed fewer monarch butterflies fluttering around the yard this summer, you're not alone. Several butterfly aficionados recently shared their concerns during a Facebook discussion on ...