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, every 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 and we hope to get queen and soldier samples every year from volunteers who see them.

Maria Luisa Muller has developed a guide that can help to identify queen, soldiers and monarchs.

Soldier & Queen Identification guide

Meet our new team member!

We would like to welcome August Anderson as our most recent recruit to the team! In addition to our 5 undergraduate assistants to the Monarch Health team Jaycee Quinn, Caroline Aikins, Jonathan Schulz, Christopher Brandon, and Kade Donaldson, August Anderson will be scoring our samples, analyzing data, and sending kits.

Congrats Anabel Prince!

We'd like to say congratulations to Anabel Prince, who graduated from the University of Georgia on May 2020. Anabel is now working as an IT and freelancing making websites, videos, and graphics. Her work can be seen on her website anabelprince.com