09/10/2026
https://www.facebook.com/share/19gjgjvuVP/?mibextid=wwXIfr
These aren't just any butterflies. These are supergeneration monarchs! 🦋
Most monarchs live only a few weeks, but this crew? They can PAUSE AGING! and stay alive more than 8 months to make a grueling 3,000-mile-long migration marathon. That's like a person living 6 centuries! (600 years, friends!)
But let's back up for a second to last winter. That year's supergeneration spends the winter in the remote volcanic mountains of central Mexico before heading back north. Once in Texas, they lay eggs before their aging "un-pause" button clicks.
Then the cycle repeats over and over, nudging a bit north with each generation, until folks on the plains of Canada see the orange flutter of monarch wings, usually in August.
The next crop of monarchs to emerge turn around and hightail (highwing?) it to Mexico - but they'll make the full 3,000-mile flight themselves unlike the generation by generation move north.
That's about 50 or 60 miles a day, and yes, they take the interstate. Well, in Iowa, I-35 has been named "The Monarch Highway" since much of it follows roughly the same route as migrating monarchs.
Learn more on migration: https://bit.ly/47BEds2
On the Monarch Highway: https://bit.ly/40ciFxo
Photo: Amie Davidson
