Our conservation spotlight this episode highlights the Monarch Butterfly as we chat with Katelyn Strack, an education Ambassador with Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation. We get an update on their population trends, information on how to help preserve them, and chat a bit about our favorite bugs.

Nicole then shares a few special grassland pollinators that many are unaware of: beetles and their 100 million year old relationship with flowers, how the Large Blue Butterfly convinces ants to take care of it, and a few other fun friends including... crustaceans?

Learn more about Xerces Society on their website.

Read the full USFWS EPA ruling on monarchs here.

Primary Sources:

• Fallon, C. 2020. Notes from the Other Orders: Beetles as Pollinators . Xerces Society.
• Pollinator Syndromes . US Forest Service.
• The ant, the butterfly and their chemical warfare with an oregano plant . PBS News.
• Dajose, L. These Beetles Have Successfully Freeloaded for 100 Million Years . Caltech California Institute of Technology.
• Smokebush . In Defense of Plants.
• Tussenbroek, B., et al. 2012. Meso-fauna foraging on seagrass pollen may serve in marine zoophilous pollination . Marine Ecology Progress Series, Vol. 469, 1-6.
• Knauer, A., Bakhtiari, M., Schiestl, F. 2018. [Crab spiders impact floral-signal evolution indirectly through removal of florivores](