ArtsAutosBooksBusinessEducationEntertainmentFamilyFashionFoodGamesGenderHealthHolidaysHomeHubPagesPersonal FinancePetsPoliticsReligionSportsTechnologyTravel

The Tenerife butterfly and moth rescue team for the Canary Islands

Updated on September 10, 2015

Monarch butterfly rescue team runs into a feeding crisis

In past issues of the Tenerife Sun I have written about my ongoing project to help increase the numbers of the beautiful Monarch butterfly (Danaus plexippus) on the island, and I am very happy to say that I am getting a growing number of people willing to help by cultivating the Scarlet Milkweed (Asclepias curassavica) food plant in their gardens or terraces. In the Amarilla Bay housing complex in Costa del Silencio there are the most members so far of my Canary islands butterfly rescue team.

Photos for this hub

Monarch on the Bard of Ely's head
Monarch on the Bard of Ely's head | Source
Death's Head Hawk moth caterpillar
Death's Head Hawk moth caterpillar | Source
Death's Head Hawk Moth (Acherontia atropos)
Death's Head Hawk Moth (Acherontia atropos) | Source
Monarch caterpillar
Monarch caterpillar | Source
Monarch chrysalises
Monarch chrysalises | Source
Tropical or Scarlet Milkweed
Tropical or Scarlet Milkweed | Source
Cornical
Cornical | Source

The Lepidopterist

There is Mike Slater, who is a lepidopterist, which is a person who studies butterflies and moths, in case you didn’t know, and Mike was naturally only too keen to help. Then there is Jan Bullivant who works in Flicks Bar, who is going to be growing some milkweed from seed, and Jenny Brignell, whose five-year-old little boy Xoaquin is very excited about it all and was happy to see the seeds I gave them come up and grow.

Unfortunately, all these people only have tiny seeds and seedlings so far. The same goes for Rob Carless in San Eugenio and Fernando Lorenzo and Emily Weston in Las Lajas in the north. Graham Ingle in Chirche and Kirsty Jay in Chio were other people I had given seeds to but also couldn’t help at this stage.

Sadly, despite all my efforts, a crisis point had been reached when all the greedy caterpillars I had on some plants out on my balcony had eaten nearly all the leaves. I knew I would have to journey on the bus down to Costa del Silencio, which is the only place where I know several plants of milkweed are growing in a flower border. I have done this before, and have been able to feed the starving caterpillars I have had here.

This time it all went badly wrong though because I got caught red-handed by a man who worked on the complex that the border is part of and he wouldn’t listen to my plea when I explained I desperately needed the plant (or rather some caterpillars did!) It was clearly more than his job’s worth to allow me to take a few stems and he said I had to empty my bag and throw the bits I had back on the border.

It all seemed so petty and such a tragic waste, but what could I do when technically I was nicking flowers from a border of a housing complex I am not even a resident of?

Beaten and desperate I thought I would try another border in another complex where I used to live and where one plant of milkweed used to grow. Unfortunately the community gardeners there had been doing obvious garden ‘tidying’ work and this process usually involves hacking everything back and pulling out smaller plants – in this case they had pulled out the milkweed I needed.

I thought there is only one other thing I can try to that is to get some Cornical (Periploca laevigata), which is a climbing vine in the milkweed family that grows wild on Tenerife and can be found on the waste ground near where I was. I didn’t think the Monarch caterpillars would eat it but faced with a life or death situation for them I hoped they would.

When I got home my worst fears were realised because my starving brood of caterpillars wouldn’t touch the Cornical even though they only had bare stalks left. Fortunately, Robbie Ehrentreich and Stefania Vello, who are two friends I have in Cueva del Viento had a few plants already growing on their finca and they said I could bring the hungry caterpillars there.

Not only that, but they already were doing their bit to help butterflies and moths because they had a huge caterpillar of the Death’s Head Hawk Moth (Acherontia atropos) demolishing a bush of Yellow Sage (Lantana crocea).

I was excited to see that they had a specimen of the brown variation of this caterpillar because I have only seen the more common green type before. It is a very odd looking creature with a spiky little horn on its tail and bizarre markings on its head.

The adult moth is equally strange with a marking like a human skull on its thorax and with its ability to squeak has given rise to many superstitions about it as an insect of evil omen. This is the moth that became a film star and was featured starring alongside Sir Anthony Hopkins and Jodie Foster in Silence of the Lambs.

I released the hungry Monarch caterpillars onto the milkweed in their new home, and then Stefania and I spotted an adult Monarch butterfly in their garden. Stefania told me she had never seen one there before so it seemed like a good omen, as if the butterfly was checking out where I was putting the young ones and approved.

Footnote: Originally published in the Tenerife Sun newspaper.

Butterfly and moth help poll

Do you help butterflies and moths?

See results
working

This website uses cookies

As a user in the EEA, your approval is needed on a few things. To provide a better website experience, hubpages.com uses cookies (and other similar technologies) and may collect, process, and share personal data. Please choose which areas of our service you consent to our doing so.

For more information on managing or withdrawing consents and how we handle data, visit our Privacy Policy at: https://corp.maven.io/privacy-policy

Show Details
Necessary
HubPages Device IDThis is used to identify particular browsers or devices when the access the service, and is used for security reasons.
LoginThis is necessary to sign in to the HubPages Service.
Google RecaptchaThis is used to prevent bots and spam. (Privacy Policy)
AkismetThis is used to detect comment spam. (Privacy Policy)
HubPages Google AnalyticsThis is used to provide data on traffic to our website, all personally identifyable data is anonymized. (Privacy Policy)
HubPages Traffic PixelThis is used to collect data on traffic to articles and other pages on our site. Unless you are signed in to a HubPages account, all personally identifiable information is anonymized.
Amazon Web ServicesThis is a cloud services platform that we used to host our service. (Privacy Policy)
CloudflareThis is a cloud CDN service that we use to efficiently deliver files required for our service to operate such as javascript, cascading style sheets, images, and videos. (Privacy Policy)
Google Hosted LibrariesJavascript software libraries such as jQuery are loaded at endpoints on the googleapis.com or gstatic.com domains, for performance and efficiency reasons. (Privacy Policy)
Features
Google Custom SearchThis is feature allows you to search the site. (Privacy Policy)
Google MapsSome articles have Google Maps embedded in them. (Privacy Policy)
Google ChartsThis is used to display charts and graphs on articles and the author center. (Privacy Policy)
Google AdSense Host APIThis service allows you to sign up for or associate a Google AdSense account with HubPages, so that you can earn money from ads on your articles. No data is shared unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy)
Google YouTubeSome articles have YouTube videos embedded in them. (Privacy Policy)
VimeoSome articles have Vimeo videos embedded in them. (Privacy Policy)
PaypalThis is used for a registered author who enrolls in the HubPages Earnings program and requests to be paid via PayPal. No data is shared with Paypal unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy)
Facebook LoginYou can use this to streamline signing up for, or signing in to your Hubpages account. No data is shared with Facebook unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy)
MavenThis supports the Maven widget and search functionality. (Privacy Policy)
Marketing
Google AdSenseThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
Google DoubleClickGoogle provides ad serving technology and runs an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
Index ExchangeThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
SovrnThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
Facebook AdsThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
Amazon Unified Ad MarketplaceThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
AppNexusThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
OpenxThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
Rubicon ProjectThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
TripleLiftThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
Say MediaWe partner with Say Media to deliver ad campaigns on our sites. (Privacy Policy)
Remarketing PixelsWe may use remarketing pixels from advertising networks such as Google AdWords, Bing Ads, and Facebook in order to advertise the HubPages Service to people that have visited our sites.
Conversion Tracking PixelsWe may use conversion tracking pixels from advertising networks such as Google AdWords, Bing Ads, and Facebook in order to identify when an advertisement has successfully resulted in the desired action, such as signing up for the HubPages Service or publishing an article on the HubPages Service.
Statistics
Author Google AnalyticsThis is used to provide traffic data and reports to the authors of articles on the HubPages Service. (Privacy Policy)
ComscoreComScore is a media measurement and analytics company providing marketing data and analytics to enterprises, media and advertising agencies, and publishers. Non-consent will result in ComScore only processing obfuscated personal data. (Privacy Policy)
Amazon Tracking PixelSome articles display amazon products as part of the Amazon Affiliate program, this pixel provides traffic statistics for those products (Privacy Policy)
ClickscoThis is a data management platform studying reader behavior (Privacy Policy)