Citizen Science | Project Monarch Health

A CITIZEN
SCIENCE
PROJECT

TRACKING THE SPREAD OF DISEASE IN

MONARCHS

About Project Monarch Health

Monarch Health is a citizen science project in which volunteers sample wild monarch butterflies to help track the spread of a protozoan parasite across North America.

Our mission is to understand host -parasite interactions in monarchs and to enhance awareness of monarch biology and conservation through the coupling of citizens and scientists.

Monarch Health Newsletter

2018 was a record year for Project Monarch Health! We received over 10,000 samples from volunteers all over the US and Canada. We've highlighted the trends we saw in our annual newsletter:

Kits are available throughout the year. Send an email to with your mailing address to request one.

Check our our new data sheet and the instructional video we made it to help you fill it out.

Sampling Locations and OE Prevelence.png

14 years of Project Monarch Health

Monarch Health is a program that has been around for 14 years. The program has grown in number of samples and coverage and it is currently seeking to expand its scope by adding queen and soldier butterflies.

Soldier/queen Identification guide

Meet our team members

We've 5 undergraduate assistants to the Monarch Health team! Farran Smith, Jaycee Quinn, Christopher Brandon, Caroline Aikins and Kade Donaldson who will be scoring our samples, analyzing data, and sending kits.

Congrats to our Graduates!

We'd like to say congratulations to Cody Prouty, Ashley Ballew, and Cecilia Nachtmann, who all graduated from the University of Georgia on May 2019. Cody and Ashley are at the UGA Ecology Master's program and have continued working and conducting research in the Altizer lab. Cecilia left in July 2019 to start a job with the Georgia Department of Natural Resources in Atlanta.