FLYING FLOWERS At a small field in Virginia Dr Lincoln Brower and his wife Linda Fink counted the delicate creatures perched on the bright pink flowers They knew that the butterflies stopped to rest and eat as they traveled to their winter roosting sites Lincoln wanted to help rescue these colorful orange-and-black butterflies 4
The graceful creatures had amazed him for more than 60 years He was not only impressed by the butterflies beauty but also by their amazing journeys Monarch butterflies are the only butterflies known to travel up to many thousands of miles from North America to winter roosting sites They fly to the mountains of Mexico coastal areas in California and other places far from their summer homes CANADA UNITED STATES MEXICO This map shows fall migration patterns of monarch butterflies A monarch butterfly lands on a milkweed flower 5
The eastern population of monarch butterflies seems to like spending the winter months high above sea level There they can hibernate until spring The oyamel fir forests in Mexico have just the right climate for monarch butterflies It’s cold but not so cold that they must use their fat reserves to survive The moisture from humidity helps to keep them healthy And the trees are big and strong enough to support millions of butterflies as they gather for the winter Some monarch butterflies fly as far as 3,000 miles 4,828 kilometers to reach these special places Monarch butterflies on their way to their winter habitat rest on the pines and eucalyptus trees in Monarch Grove Sanctuary in Pacific Grove California 6
But in recent years tourism and logging has taken away much of the monarch’s winter habitat And in the United States their food supply has been depleted because of the use of herbicides Scientists such as Lincoln know that monarch butterfly caterpillars only eat one thing milkweed Milkweed protects the caterpillars from being eaten by birds or other predators because to them milkweed is poisonous The brightly colored monarch butterfly caterpillars only eat milkweed Their bright colors are a warning to predators that they are poisonous FIELD NOTES The Mexican government recognized the importance of oyamel fir forests in 1986 They created the Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve for monarch butterflies 7
