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Do Monarch Larvae use Visual or Chemical Stimuli to find Milkweed?

April 26, 2017chemical larvae milkweed Monarch stimuli Visual

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Do Monarch Larvae use Visual or Chemical Stimuli to find Milkweed?

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The purpose of our experiment was to examine how a caterpillar (4th or 5th instar) finds milkweed in a field with other plants and scents. We tested monarch larval use of visual, chemical, or both stimuli to find milkweed. We built a Terrarri-quad to provide four options for the larvae’s sensory perception: (1) scent only, (2) visual only, (3) both scent and visual, or (4) neither visual nor scent. Each caterpillar was individually placed facing a pre-determined direction in the middle of the Terrarri-quad. Seventy-nine larvae were tested with 30 not going to any specific quadrant, 29 to the chemical stimulus only, 5 to visual only, 14 to the quadrant with both stimuli, and 1 to the quadrant with the control plant, Salvia. Our data suggest that monarch larvae primarily use chemical stimuli to find milkweed plants.