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A Fragile but Hardy Traveler

BY AWAKE! CORRESPONDENT IN CANADA

Artists paint them and poets write about them. Numerous varieties live in tropical rain forests. Many live in woodlands, in fields, and on prairies. Some weather the cold of mountaintops; others, the heat of deserts. They have been described as one of the most beautiful of all insects.

NO DOUBT you are familiar with this exquisite and graceful creature—the butterfly. One type of butterfly, however, has gained worldwide fame for its amazing feats of travel. This fragile but hardy traveler is the monarch. Let us take a closer look at this jewel of creation and its incredible migrations.

Delicate Jewel of Creation

Picture yourself in a meadow on a warm, sunny day. Keep your eyes fixed on those graceful winged wonders darting here and there among the wildflowers, in their endless search for food and drink. Stand motionless with your arm extended. One is coming closer. Oh, it is going to light on your arm! Notice how softly it lands.

Now take a closer look. Observe its two pairs of powdery, delicate orange wings, etched in black, with intricately designed borders. It has been said that the monarch was named by English settlers in America who associated it with their monarch, William of Orange. Indeed, this butterfly is a “monarch.” But this fragile beauty, weighing only one fortieth of an ounce [0.5 gm] and with a wingspan of three to four inches [8-10 cm], is capable of making long, arduous journeys.

Impressive Flights

While some butterflies are said to migrate longer distances with the onset of winter, only the monarch makes such long journeys with precise destinations and in such great numbers. The migration of the monarch is truly a butterfly phenomenon. Consider some of the impressive feats of these hardy travelers.

Their flight from Canada in the fall to their wintering grounds in California or Mexico exceeds 2,000 miles [3,200 km]. They cross large lakes, rivers, plains, and mountains. Millions of them successfully complete migration to a destination high in the Sierra Madre mountains of central Mexico.

Such flights are all the more astonishing when you consider that the young butterflies have never made this flight before, nor have they seen the hibernation sites. But unerringly they sense the flight direction and know when they have arrived at their winter habitats. How do they do it?

Canadian Geographic states: “Clearly, there is some sophisticated genetic programming in their modest little brains, some means perhaps of reading the angle of sun rays, as bees do, or the earth’s magnetic field, which seems to guide birds. An ability to detect specific temperature and moisture conditions may help at the end. But so far the answers have eluded science.” Like the creatures mentioned in the Bible book of Proverbs, “they are instinctively wise.”—Proverbs 30:24.

The monarchs are also master fliers. They glide at about 7 miles per hour [12 kph], soar at about 11 miles per hour [18 kph], and—as anyone who has tried to catch one knows—dart even faster, at about 22 miles per hour [35 kph]. They are most adept at utilizing the winds—even tacking against prevailing westerlies to move southwest toward their destination. Using complicated flight strategies, they deal with variations in wind speed and direction. In much the same manner as glider pilots and hawks, they catch rides on thermals (updrafts of warm air). According to one source, monarchs commonly travel as many as 120 miles [200 km] a day. They fly only during the daylight. At night they rest, often in the very same location each year.

University of Toronto scientist David Gibo has learned that the monarch is more than an occasional soarer or glider. He reports: “The butterflies have to play the wind in what I think are much more clever ways than migrating geese do.” The routine of flapping, soaring, and feeding allows the monarchs to arrive in Mexico with enough fat to last them through the winter and the start of their flight back north in the spring. Professor Gibo also says: “Gliding is how they make the long trip and end up fit and healthy.”

Mass Migrations

It has been known for a long time that monarchs west of the Rocky Mountains migrate south and winter in California. They can be seen hanging in clusters in pine and eucalyptus trees in places along the southern coast of California. But the destination of the migration of large populations of monarchs in eastern Canada remained a mystery for some time.

In 1976 this mystery was unraveled. Their wintering grounds were finally discovered—a wooded summit in the Sierra Madre mountains of Mexico. Millions upon millions of butterflies were found densely loaded upon the branches and trunks of the tall, gray-green fir trees. This impressive sight continues to be a fascinating attraction for visitors.

One of the best places in Canada to see the monarchs en masse is at Point Pelee National Park, Ontario, where they cluster in preparation for their migration south. In late summer they congregate in this southerly point in Canada, waiting on the north shore of Lake Erie until the winds and temperature are favorable before taking off on their southern journey to their wintering sites in Mexico.

Destinations

Starting at Point Pelee, they island-hop across Lake Erie to begin the long journey across the continental United States. En route, other groups of monarchs join them in the migration. High in the mountains northwest of Mexico City, an estimated one hundred million congregate to spend the winter.

Other migrations take place through Florida and across the Caribbean, and these may end up in destinations yet to be discovered in the Yucatán Peninsula or in Guatemala. Whether in Mexico or in their other winter havens, the monarchs crowd together in a few relatively small patches of mountain forest.

One might think that their long flight to their winter home would take them to a vacation land of warm, sunny meadows. But not so. The Transvolcanic Range of Mexico, where they go, is cold. The climate provided by the mountain peaks, however, is just right for their wintering. It is cold enough to cause them to spend their time in a state of almost total inactivity—thus stretching their life span to eight or ten months, which allows for flying to Mexico, wintering there, and starting back. You could say it is a vacation of sorts.

Spring arrives, and the monarchs become active again. As the days lengthen, the butterflies flutter in the sunlight, begin to mate, and start their flight back north. Some, it is believed, may make the complete journey back, but it is generally only the progeny that arrive in the summer ranges in Canada and the northern United States. Three or four generations of eggs, caterpillars, pupae, and butterflies gradually move back up the continent. The female—loaded with a hundred or more fertilized eggs—flutters through the patches of wildflowers and lays her eggs one at a time on the undersides of young, tender milkweed leaves. And so the cycle goes on, and the journey to the monarch’s summer home continues.

Truly, the monarch is a fascinating creature. What a privilege humans have to observe and study its activities. Not surprisingly, though, the monarch’s long-secret wintering grounds in Mexico, as well as destinations in California, are being threatened by human enterprise. To assume that these delicate beauties of creation have somewhere else to go could result in their extinction. Commendably, efforts are being made to protect them from such an eventuality. How grand it will be when in the Creator’s promised Paradise earth now near at hand, these fragile but hardy travelers will be guaranteed a safe haven!

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Butterfly: Parks Canada/J. N. Flynn

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Page 16 top and bottom: Parks Canada/J. N. Flynn; middle: Parks Canada/D. A. Wilkes; page 17 top: Parks Canada/J. N. Flynn; middle and bottom: Parks Canada/J. R. Graham