A monarch butterfly carrying a tiny tag developed by Cellular Tracking Technologies at the Cape May Point Arts and Science Center in New Jersey, which helped fund a monarch tagging project.Credit...Video by Hannah Beier
Posted on 11/19/2025 4:51:38 PM PST by E. Pluribus Unum
Scientists used tiny new sensors to follow the insects on journeys that take thousands of miles to their winter colonies in Mexico.
A monarch butterfly carrying a tiny tag developed by Cellular Tracking Technologies at the Cape May Point Arts and Science Center in New Jersey, which helped fund a monarch tagging project.Credit...Video by Hannah Beier
For the first time, scientists are tracking the migration of monarch butterflies across much of North America, actively monitoring individual insects on journeys from as far away as Ontario all the way to their overwintering colonies in central Mexico.
This long-sought achievement could provide crucial insights into the poorly understood life cycles of hundreds of species of butterflies, bees and other flying insects at a time when many are in steep decline.
The breakthrough is the result of a tiny solar-powered radio tag that weighs just 60 milligrams and sells for $200. Researchers have tagged more than 400 monarchs this year and are now following their journeys on a cellphone app created by the New Jersey-based company that makes the tags, Cellular Tracking Technologies.
Most monarchs weigh 500 to 600 milligrams, so each tag-bearing migrator making the transcontinental journey is, by weight, equivalent to a half-raisin carrying three uncooked grains of rice.
“There’s nothing that’s not amazing about this,” said Cheryl Schultz, a butterfly scientist at Washington State University and the senior author of a recent study documenting a 22 percent drop in butterfly abundance in North America over a recent 20-year period. The movements of monarchs and other flying insects are cloaked in mystery, and “now we will have answers that could help us turn the tide for these bugs.”
Tracking the world’s most famous insect migration may also have a big social impact, with monarch lovers able...
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
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I swear Americans will do anything to avoid using the metric system.
I saw millions and millions of them once while driving home from work in Rancho Cordova California. An amazing site, right up there with seeing the Northern Lights.
I had a monarch fly through my yard right after I planted some flowers.
Of course, before the squirrels ate the milkweed I was trying to grow, I didn’t see a single monarch. Milkweed is supposed to be their favorite food.
They are migrating right now.
The only reason euros use the metric system is their weenies seem bigger in centimeters.
“The breakthrough is the result of a tiny solar-powered radio tag that weighs just 60 milligrams and sells for $200.”
########################
“But we’ll never use these to track humans. No sir!”
The 1950s Popular Science cover stories of flying cars and commuting to cities on the Moon didn’t work out.
But we can put sensors on butterflies.
No, it's their only food, for caterpillars anyway. The adults won't lay their eggs on anything else.
The caterpillars feasting on the bitter milkweed sap is supposedly what gives the adults their unpleasant taste, which is why the usual predators want nothing to do with them.
Solar Powered?
So, if the Sun does not shine, will they have to fly many airplanes over the Monarchs with huuuuge floodlights to power the tracker?
I have seen a few this year. I am always amazed how the little buggers make that kind of migration.
I can say with some hard-earned authority that the big challenge with the above is that bugs are not capable of extended dormancy as are plants. If the plants stop germinating and fruiting, no bugs. No bugs, no birds. That's how it works. The problem is worldwide. The mass of bugs in Germany is down 75% over the last 30 years.
Perhaps the most destructive element in this ugly equation is that leftists are in love with "preserving the environment" thus precluding all disturbance necessary for the germination and flowering of native annual plants. They also hate herbicides necessary to get a grip on those weeds the bugs can't eat. It's a bad scene.
So if anybody reading this wants to help me get ahold of Mr. Zinke I can explain the preliminary steps in getting out of this ugly mess.
We’ve had several come through our place this year.
Should have said equivalent to a human carrying an extra ten to twenty pounds.
Pretty cool they can track a butterfly as it is smashed on a windshield.
Sounds breathtaking. 🥹
🐅🦋🌄
It is amazing that something so fragile can make a flight of thousands of miles.
We’ve got tons of milkweed growing on our property and when we weed whack and mow, we actually avoid them. They’re the only weed we let grow, cause of the monarchs.
I get a kick out of watching them fly.
They fly like Woodstock. While they may travel some few thousand miles as measured in a straight line, by the time they’re done flitting around apparently at random, they must cover 10 times that distance.
New!
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