Unseasonable Cold Kills Monarchs in Mexico
Unusually cold winters aren’t just happening in Europe and in the northeast U.S. Two inches of snow fell in the Zacatecas state of Mexico, where snow is almost never seen at all. This is part of a cold spell in Mexico this winter that has killed off 10% of the 100 million Monarch butterflies that are spending the winter there, before migrating back to the U.S. and Canada in the summer.
The butterflies have been frozen to branches by the icy winds. However, this is not their worst winter. Marco Hernandez, director of the Biosphere Reserve, where the Monarchs spend the winter, says, “In 2002, with (6 inches) of snow, we were walking on thick carpets of dead butterflies.”
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