Latest Monarch Stories

The mysterious Monarch butterfly, which migrates annually between Canada and Mexico, is now facing a new peril: another insect thriving in Western Mexican forests.Some 8,000 oyamel fir trees were cut down in July to remove beetles that threaten the Monarch's ages-old migration.But now another small beetle has since taken to devouring the savory tree trunks, further endangering the butterflies' winter colonies.Homero Gomez, president of El Rosario Sanctuary, says, "We are working to...

LUTON, England, Oct. 6 /PRNewswire/ -- Award winning travel group Monarch has launched a new version of its website, www.monarch.co.uk, with a whole new look and feel as well as added functionality, making it even easier to find the lowest fares and book Monarch Flights, Monarch Holidays and Monarch Hotels. As well as a re-design to bring the website inline with Monarch's latest brand and advertising designs, the site also features a range of developments including a merged booking search...

Monarch butterflies locate their winter home in Mexico through a key mechanism in their antennae, scientists in Massachusetts said. Scientists have long known that butterfly antennae can detect odors, wind direction and vibration, said Dr. Steven Reppert, chair of neurobiology at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. But its role in precise orientation over the course of butterfly migration is an intriguing new discovery, one that may spark a new line of investigation into neural...

After years of theorizing about how Monarch butterflies find their way to Mexico for the winter, scientists have finally discovered that their antennas help them navigate the journey.Researchers confirmed the finding when they painted their antennas black and observed them losing their way. Butterflies have only the sun in the sky as a point of reference for direction, and since the sun is always moving, they have to constantly adjust in order to stay on the right path throughout the day....

New tires allow race cars to take tight turns at high speeds. Hind wings give moths and butterflies similar advantages: They are not necessary for basic flight but help these creatures take tight turns to evade predators."To escape a predator, you don't have to be fast, you just have to be more erratic," said Tom Eisner, a world authority on animal behavior, ecology and evolution and the Jacob Gould Schurman Professor Emeritus of Chemical Ecology at Cornell. Eisner is co-author of a...

By ANNYSA JOHNSON Wauwatosa -- Barb Agnew remembers standing on this same spot on the Milwaukee County Grounds a few years ago, in the shade of this grand and verdant sycamore tree. She turned to the north, and there she saw them: hundreds of monarch butterflies, in a glorious cloud of orange and black, flitting up over the hill and into astand of trees. Not everyone who visits the Monarch Trail that Agnew has created on this expansive public land is treated to such a spectacular show....

At the Oceanfront, one set of visitors arrives late in the summer and hangs around long after Labor Day. They'd be the perfect visitors to extend the tourist season, except they are birds. Called sanderlings, these buff and white critters arrive en masse in late August. Many stay all winter because they find our cold weather beaches and Oceanfront dining to their liking. These late summer arrivals that turn more pale and gray as they lose their breeding plumage are so familiar to August and...

By Neil Connor Birmingham International Airport received a major boost yesterday with the news that a major airline will commence services from the hub to Istanbul. The link up with national flag carrier Turkish Airlines will offer Midland travellers the first direct scheduled service to Istanbul from the region. The five weekly flights, which will begin on December 15, will provide onward flight opportunities within Turkey, the Middle East and the Far East, through Turkish Airlines own...

The milkweed adheres to the adage Know your enemy by using fast repair work when its defenses are damaged by hungry caterpillars, U.S. researchers said. Cornell University researchers examined the way milkweed evolved to the monarch butterfly caterpillar's changing attempts to disarm the plant, the Ithaca, N.Y., university said in a news release. They found the plant may be evolving away from its defenses against certain caterpillars toward repairing themselves faster than caterpillars can...

The adage that your enemies know your weaknesses best is especially true in the case of plants and predators that have co-evolved: As the predators evolve new strategies for attack, plants counter with their own unique defenses.Milkweed is the latest example of this response, according to Cornell research suggesting that plant may be shifting away from elaborate defenses against specialized caterpillars toward a more energy-efficient approach. Genetic analysis reveals an evolutionary trend...