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Click
picture to enlarge
 Monarchs
migrate between their homes in Canada and the U.S., and Mexico.
Every fall, about 300 million
monarch butterflies like these start heading south for the winter.
They leave Canada and the northern United States for their winter
homes. This journey is called a migration. What other animals
migrate? It's a long, hard journey for the monarchs. Normally,
monarchs only live as butterflies for a few weeks. But those
who migrate south live for several months, so that their population
can survive the winter. Then a new generation of monarchs returns
north every spring.
The monarchs spend the winter in a part of Mexico where the temperature
rarely drops below freezing, and they curl up together in trees
to stay warm. The map here shows their routes south. They travel
together until they reach Texas, then branch out to different
parts of the U.S. and southern Canada. A smaller monarch butterfly
population living west of the Rocky Mountains spends the winter
along the California coast, and goes to the Pacific Northwest
for the spring and summer. On their trip north, females lay eggs.
These young monarchs live only five or six weeks, and rarely
make it to their destinations. This is one of the biggest mysteries
about monarchs - their yearly migration takes several generations
to finish. How do you think the monarchs know where to fly?
The monarchs in Mexico nest in the same trees as previous generations
did the year before. They arrive during the first days of November,
around the Mexican holiday the Day of the Dead. A Mexican myth
about the monarchs says they are the spirits of people's dead
ancestors.
 
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