New Butterflies Unsteady
(Wesley Chapel, Florida)
We are having an unusually cold Winter here in Central Florida, so we took in a few Monarchs: a newly emerged butterfly, a chrysalis from which a butterfly emerged yesterday and a caterpillar which has turned into a chrysalis. We don't have a butterfly tent but have them in our kitchen in the open. The first two butterflies look fine but don't fly very much and the newest one sometimes falls over on its side when it does fly for a bit, although it seems to enjoy walking over our hands. We have been feeding them sugar water and providing small vases of fresh Pentas, Petunias and Impatiens from our potted plants on our lanai (the only area plants undamaged by frost). We are hoping to release them in two days when the weather warms up, but fear their seeming inability to fly may make them easy prey. Do you have any insight or is there anything we can do to help them? Thank you for any advice you can offer.
Cheryl, I wonder if the butterflies possibly have a parasite problem called OE or Ophryocystis elektroscirrha. It is spread by spores on the milkweed through the life cycle of the monarch butterfly. Monarchs that emerge with OE many times cannot fly (the wings don't properly form) and can have other problems.
Here is a link about OE:
If you suspect that this is the problem, make sure and sterilize (with a bleach and water solution) anything you would use again that might come in contact with future butterflies that you raise. This is very contagious. I hope this helps.