Case Study: The Monarch Butterfly

The monarch butterfly, also known as Danaus plexippus, is recognized as America’s state insect with a wing span of 4 inches and 10 centimeters long – the longest wing span ever recorded within the monarchs’ insect population (Conant, 2012). Monarchs are notorious in the United States because of their spectacular migration across Canada and the United States to the overwintering sites in central Mexico – and back again. In this case, monarchs migrate between 2,000 to 3,000 miles every single year (Urquhart, F.A. and Urquhart, N.R., 1976). A monarchs ' 3,000 mile trip is like a person traveling 275, 000 miles (Opler, 2010) – that’s like walking around Earth eleven times. The main reason why Monarchs migrate from eastern North America to the forests of Oyamel in Michoacán, Mexico, is due to season change, in pursuit for food and water, or in search for a new mate (Conant, 2012). Monarch butterflies fly south to Mexico because it gets colder in the north. The monarchs migrate to approximately 10 to 13 colony sites in the Oyamel forests of central Mexico. The first site of these migrating butterflies was in 1975 when a forest trooper in Mexico stumbled upon the vast number of monarch butterflies resting onto the trees …show more content…
A good way to help monarchs during their eastern or western migration is to commit to an organic dietary lifestyle: create a native insect-friendly garden, eat foods that are not genetically modified and avoid commercially known foods. Taking action in the community is vastly important in raising awareness about the genetically modified farms that are harming the larval developmental growth and maturation stages of these monarch butterflies. Without the monarch butterfly in our ecosystem some flowering plants may disappear from Earth