Marion Gunderson Art (and the Farmer's Daughter)

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This past Friday I was painting our new siding. (Ugh, but a penny saved is a penny earned.) I glanced over at the wildflowers and saw a plethora of monarch butterflies.

I don’t know where I was in elementary school when we studied the life cycle of a butterfly! I definitely learned from this web site. Before studying the site, I thought that maybe the thing that appears to be sticking out of this butterfly’s mouth and into the flower was its tongue. Um, nooooo. It is the butterfly’s proboscis.* The web site at the above hyperlink offers this explanation about the proboscis:

Now many people do not know exactly how the monarch butterfly food is consumed. Well, a small little pipe, like a straw, which is coiled under its head most of the time is what an adult monarch butterfly uses to suck up all of the nectar from plants. The straw is called a ‘proboscis’. This is the reason that all monarch butterflies generally stick to an all-liquid diet; it is very hard to suck up any solids with a straw like that for your mouth.

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I hope you’ll click on at least the first/top photo to enlarge the detail.

*Click here for Merriam Webster’s definition and pronunciation of “proboscis.” According to Webster’s, there are two correct pronunciations.

For anyone who just happens to be wanting to write an alphabet book based on alliteration, “monarch migration” could be used for the “M” page. My favorite alliteration children’s book is Graeme Base’s Animalia. I love its “L” page…”Lazy Lions Lounging in the Local Library.”

(Click here to go to Louise Shimon’s blog’s home  page.)

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