Fluttering The Miles Away
The monarch butterfly, unlike most insects, has evolved the ability to fly long distances to avoid freezing temperatures, maintain its food supply, and increase its population.
Each spring, giant clusters of monarchs move from their winter quarters in Mexico's oyamel (fir tree) forests to the United States and Canada.
Monarchs are believed to use the sun and the magnetic field of the earth for navigation during their long flight. The migrating butterflies will breed four or five generations during the northward migration, laying eggs along the way from the Gulf States to southern Canada. They follow routes where their host plant, the milkweed, grows in greatest numbers.
The larvae that hatch during the spring and summer months live only for a few weeks, but those that emerge closer to autumn will live for eight or nine months, long enough to make the return trip south.
It is a matter of much speculation how the younger generations of monarchs know the location of the winter roosting ground in Mexico. They have never made the trip, and no guides from the trip north have survived.
Written by Curtis Grisham with graphic design by Jerry Donnelly