Migration:
Adult monarchs have an amazing migration, as they travel thousands of miles to avoid
On the East coast, they will travel to the forests of
overwinter on fir trees there for the winter. In the spring, the monarch will mate,
and the resulting generation will begin the migration back north all the
way to Canada
Mimicry:
Mimicry is the act of imitating something. In nature, animals and plants can closely resemble
to its survival. A butterfly that mimics the
another to provide some benefit
You can distinguish it from a monarch
than the monarch, and by identifying a black stripe
The mimic benefits by looking like the monarch, as predators
appearance of the monarch is the Vice roy
because it is slightly Smaller
along its
will avoid it since it looks like the monarch and it knows monarchs to taste bad.
Monarch Watch & Tagging:
Monarch tagging began in the 1990's by Dr.
Tarenta
underside of its
urquhart
Tagging a monarch is simply putting a
Parasites:
is reported to the organization Monarch Watch.
at the University of
to
on the
so that data about that butterfly can be recorded when it
A parasite is an organism that lives on or in a
and gets its food from or at
the expense of that organism. The most common parasite for the monarch is called
It is a protozoan that lives in the scales of the butterfly and can be
passed from adult to eggs. Another common parasite is the tachinid
Endangered Species:
An endangered species is an animal or plant that is at serious risk of
Monarchs were classified as endangered in the summer of 2022 because of
use and a loss of
cause of this decrease in their population.
Climate change is also considered a