On Monday, experts in Mexico said 35 per cent more monarch butterflies arrived this year to spend the winter in mountaintop forests. Experts explained that the rise may reflect the insects ability to adapt to more extreme bouts of heat or drought. The government in charge of natural protected area said butterflies covered 2.84 hectares compared to 2.1 hectares last year.
Each year the butterflies return to Canada and the United States on an annual migration. However, this pattern is threatened by the loss of milkweed they fed on north of the border, and deforestation in Mexico. Regional director of Mexico’s Commission for National Protected Areas Gloria Tavera said the monarchs’ wintering ground rose by about 4.5 per cent this year.
Butterflies will usually arrive in the mountaintop pine and fir forests west of Mexico City in late October and early November. They normally return to the U.S. and Canada in March but this year Tavera said they began leaving in February. Tavera said “They are beginning to adapt to extreme climate conditions.
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