Travels and Trails
Magnificent Monarchs of Mexico
by Ron Miller, M.S., Silviculturist
Monarch (Danaus plexipus) The race is on! Millions of monarch butterflies that some friends and I were fortunate to see in the Sierra Madre mountains of Michoacan, Mexico have headed north. Texas, almost certainly, has already been blessed with their presence and the next generation of monarchs is continuing the northward migration. It will take 4 generations of these incredible, brightly-colored orange, black and white insects to reach destinations in Canada and our northern states before a super-generation of monarchs turns around this fall and flies up to 2,500 miles back to the same trees that hosted the monarchs we visited in March.
Those of you who faithfully read the articles about the magnificent trees of the White Mountains will notice this slight departure, but it is the trees in Mexico’s highest mountains that provide the critical habitat that makes it possible for the monarch butterflies to survive the winter there. Principally, a species of true fir (Abies religiosa) called Oyamel in Mexico and some
28 The Maverick Magazine
June 2022 Issue
Celebrating 20 years “on the Mountain”
