What common US bird has a taste for monarch butterflies?
We all learned in school that birds would avoid the foul-tasting monarch.
But not all birds are put off by the butterflies’ toxins, which the caterpillars concentrate while growing fat on milkweed.
Black-billed Cuckoos, Scott’s Orioles, and Purple Martins have been seen to capture and eat adult monarchs; Loggerhead Shrikes are said to hang the butterflies in the sun to let the poison break down.
But the uncontested champions among monarch eaters are Mexico’s Black-backed Oriole–and the familiar Black-headed Grosbeak. Birds of these two species consume several hundred thousand monarchs on the wintering grounds in central Mexico.
Looks innocent enough....
One important introduced species is also apparently immune to the monarchs’ poison: the domestic chicken.
Ash-throated Flycatcher?
Ugh, didn’t finish my comments… was going to say that I think I’ve seen photos of them with Monarchs in their bills. Could’ve been Queens…
Good one, Patrick! Here’s an account of an Ash-throated Flycatcher eating a monarch in northwest Mexico: http://www.backyardnature.net/ecoenrgy.htm
Pacific-slope Flycatchers also eat Monarchs and leave piles of remains. They sample the wings first to see if they are edible (apparently it depends on the exact species of plant the larva fed on)before they eat one.
Thanks, Jim! Ambitious little guys, aren’t they?
I wonder if the black and orange coloring of the birds indicates to predators that they are aposematic as well and does that come from eating the toxic butterflies?