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From folklore to tattoos, butterflies
enjoy fame, recognition and love like no other insect. Lepidoptera (the
family of moths and butterflies) are seen as graceful,
elegant and emissaries of the divine. Butterflies do not carry deadly (to human)
disease, sting, or feast on rotting flesh, yet the butterfly’s
place in the human heart has not spared the destruction
of its habitat, the pollution of its air or the endangerment
of its wintering grounds. The survival of the monarch,
however beloved, is now delicately linked to the preservation
of its habitat, migration
routes, and limited wintering grounds.
Transformation and development
Adult monarchs (or Danaus plexippus) deposit
their eggs on the underside of milkweed leaves. Depending
upon temperature, the eggs hatch in three to twelve
days. The larvae feed on the plant leaves for about
two weeks (the milkweed, while edible to the caterpillar,
is a toxin and renders the caterpillar poisonous to
potential predators), developing into chubby caterpillars.
After attaching themselves head down to a convenient
twig, they shed their outer skin and begin the transformation
into a pupa (or chrysalis), a process which is completed
in a matter of hours.
For approximately two weeks, the caterpillar
stays packed within the green case of the chrysalis
as its body completes its genesis into a butterfly.
Emerging from its case, the butterfly waits until its
wings stiffen and dry before it ventures off in search
of its new food—flower nectar.
Mass migration
Unlike most other insects in temperate
regions, monarch butterflies cannot survive a long cold
winter. Like birds, the monarch follows a pattern of
seasonal migration. Each autumn millions of these butterflies
leave their breeding grounds and fly to wintering sites--
monarchs west of the Rocky Mountains travel to small
groves of trees along the California coast, while those
in the central United States fly farther south to the
pine forests of eastern Michoacan in central Mexico.
In all of these sites butterflies coat trees in quivering
coats of gold and orange, in colonies of up to 20 million
individuals. Incredibly the monarchs return to the same
roosting grounds every year, often to the very same
trees!
Conservation, challenges and an undecided
future
Monarchs and their spectacular seasonal
migration are seriously threatened by human activities—primarily
the destruction of their forest hibernation grounds and their summer habitats. Road construction, housing
developments, deforestation, and agricultural expansion
are all working to destroy the places the monarchs depend
on, and the plants they need to survive.
Rare, Ninos y Crias (a Mexican conservation organization), and the University of Guadalajara are currently working with the Mariposa
Monarca Biosphere Reserve in Michoacan, Mexico to help
save the monarch’s wintering grounds. The reserve
is under constant threat from agricultural development,
unsustainable tourism, and other development pressures.
Alejandra Hinojosa Mendoza, a conservationist and employee of
the reserve is currently running a Pride
campaign in and around the biosphere. The campaign is
using the monarch as a symbol to build support and pride
for the butterfly in local communities. At the end of
the coming year, Alejandra’s hard work will have
hopefully resulted in the creation of a powerful new
voice for the preservation and protection of the monarch--
right where it needs it most.
Learn more about the Pride Program
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