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At this moment, hundreds of thousands of Painted Lady butterflies are fluttering along one of the most astonishing migrations in the insect world: an epic trip of roughly 4,500 miles from the sub-Saharan region to the Arctic Circle, at a speed of up to 30 miles per hour. Over the course of a year, the butterflies will fly about twice that — more than 9,000 miles in all.
The Painted Ladies are one of the most widely distributed butterflies in the world, appearing on every continent except Antarctica and sometimes crossing the seas and oceans between them. Just last year, researchers discovered that a flock of Painted Ladies rode the wind over the Atlantic Ocean from West Africa to the northern coast of South America — the first documented insect journey across an ocean.
The migration of the Painted Lady butterfly
The Painted Lady butterfly (Vanessa cardui) undertakes the longest known butterfly migration — an annual, multigenerational journey between Europe and tropical Africa. In search of blooming flowers and host plants, these butterflies travel more than 9,000 miles round-trip, crossing deserts, seas and mountains along the way.
Source: Dr. Gerard Talavera; butterflymigration.com
Note: Illustrations are not to scale.
The Painted Lady’s migration, chronicled in the photographer Lucas Foglia’s new book, “Constant Bloom,” is a powerful reminder of our interconnections with nature and our shared stake in an ever-changing world.
The butterflies’ resilience shows us that some species are capable of adapting to dramatic changes in climate, food availability and urban development. But they also require humans’ attention to continue thriving. If we don’t protect their breeding grounds and nectar sources, these butterflies could meet the same fate as many others. While there is no data showing a change in the population of Painted Ladies, a recent study revealed that American butterfly populations decreased 22 percent between 2000 and 2020, in part because of habitat loss, climate change and farmers’ use of insecticides.
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