Do you know that humans are “iteroparous” animals? I did know that, but I was not familiar with the term. I’ve been watching the monarch butterfly migration, which has been impressive this year, especially on the flowers at the Senior Center. It got me to thinking about their strange life cycle. They go through four or five generations from March through September as each generation flies a few hundred miles northeast, lays eggs, and dies. Then the final generation, called the “super generation”, hatches as far north as Canada. This generation goes through a process called “diapause”, or delayed reproduction.
As summer comes to an end, the nutrients in milkweed plants, the primary food for the monarch caterpillar, begin to dissipate such that when the caterpillar changes into an adult monar…