Where Monarch Butterflies go during the winter time.

Sometime last week, Google released their new logo as 'Celebrating Monarch Butterfly Arrival'. This doodle is to celebrate the butterflies heading to Mexico as part of their Winter migration from North America to Mexico.

Here is the Doodle. The doodle comprises with trees in all shades of green, with floating Monarch Butterflies (with black stripes and orange body) with the Google logo as the clouds faded in white. The shape of the entire logo is not perfectly rectangular shaped, but more as to resemble a forest.

The logo is found in the bottom, there was a GIF component as well which can be found in this website:

https://doodles.google/doodle/celebrating-the-monarch-butterfly-arrival/ 

 Haha I was looking for some research and some really great videos came up!

According to the WWF Wild Classroom, the Monarch butterflies know their cues from environmental cues; cold weather, breeze. They only live from four to five weeks. Some Monarchs fly 2,800 miles (45 km) from the northern parts of Canada and the US to the forests of Mexico.

After five months, some butterflies live up towards the southern end of the US (Texas, Louisiana, Oklahoma). In the long run, they lay their eggs towards the long journey back during the summertime.

Here is the video for more information about their migration.

From the Great Big Story video they did back in 2017, in Michoacan, Mexico is the place where they pass the cold months in this beautiful forest. 

Check it out below!

Unfortunately, the Monarch butterflies have its downs as well; meaning there are some factors that prevent them from doing this. First, the elimination of milkweed and nectar from plants, from agriculture, climate change (which makes the weather hotter in the US/Canada and colder winters throughout the Winter season) and the use of herbicides and pesticides from food. 

WWF has also talked about the illegal deforestation in Mexico where butterflies hibernate in the winter. 

There are good news in terms of saving the Monarch Butterflies.

From the CBC: The National video from reporter Sarah Levitt from July 2021, she reported on a 10-day International Monitoring blitz. 

In her report, she interviews Roger Giraldeau (the monitor) and Alessandro Dieni (Mission Monarch Coordinator) and they talk about the initiative towards saving the butterflies.

Another video from the Texas Parks and Wildlife shows how you can help save the butterflies.

There are many ways to save Monarch Butterflies