What are the main life habits of monarch butterflies in The Beautiful Monarch Butterfly?

The monarch butterfly, whose scientific name is Betula platyphylla, comes from North America and has orange and black patterns all over its body. Every winter comes, they take off from Canada and the northern United States, gather in thousands, migrate to the warm Mexican fir forest for the winter, and then return to Canada. No monarch butterfly can participate in such a long migration. The migration habits of monarch butterflies have always aroused great interest among biologists.

Monarch butterflies live in North America. It is not only beautiful, but also a mysterious way of life. Every year, millions of monarch butterflies spend a long winter in the forests of central Mexico.

Every spring in March, the monarch butterfly spreads its beautiful wings, flies into the blue sky and begins a large-scale migration to the United States. Because they have to follow two plants on which they live: Italian bees in Mexico and milkweed in North America.

The overwintering monarch butterfly needs cool and humid air to recover its physical strength after a long journey. So, thousands of them gathered in the Eurasian Mayer shirt tree. These banyan trees grow in high altitude and cold mountainous areas. According to a research team that tracked the monarch butterfly's northward migration, only 2% of Mexico's original Mel Mountain forest was preserved. The cold environment in the forest can reduce the metabolic rate of monarch butterflies, and exchange land to convert stored fat into energy. Because only in this way can the overwintering monarch butterfly breathe in the tree without eating or drinking, and spend the whole winter safely, making its life cycle as long as more than 8 months.

Spring has come, and milkweed in North America has gradually revived and blossomed. Monarch butterflies began to leave Mexico and fly north. They fly 130 km every day in search of milkweed. They have a soft spot for milkweed and can only lay eggs on the tender seedlings of this plant. Although this plant is poisonous, it will not harm monarch butterflies, and its strange smell can prevent other animals from preying on monarch butterfly larvae.

On the journey to the north, the female monarch butterfly lays eggs in milkweed, and the spawning area can extend 1600 meters. By the end of March, most monarchs who bid farewell to Mexico arrived in Texas, and then they flew across the bay to Florida. By this time, they were exhausted and came to the end of their lives. This is not only because of the long distance, but also because spawning consumes a lot of energy. However, it won't be long before the new life can continue the unfinished journey of its parents. The eggs laid by the monarch butterfly on the way north began to hatch. The hatched larvae began to eat milkweed, their only food source. In less than two weeks, the weight of these larvae increased by more than 2000 times compared with when they were born, and their length was 5 cm. Then they pupate. After 8~ 12 days, the beautiful monarch butterfly emerged from its cocoon. They have a pair of black and white wings. Unlike their wintering parents, these newly vocal monarchs only live for six weeks.

In early May, a new generation of monarch butterflies moved westward to Canada. They will reproduce for two generations all summer. Those monarchs born between mid-August and September will follow their parents' journey south to Mexico to escape the cold in North America.

After four generations and a long journey of more than 60 thousand kilometers, autumn has come. A new generation of monarch butterflies flew back to Mexico in droves and returned to the forest where their ancestors spent the winter. Surprisingly, they miraculously found the tree where their great-grandfather once lived. Scientists still don't know how these beautiful elves found the forest where their ancestors spent the winter, although they have never been there before.

In June 2007 +065438+ 10, the Mexican government announced a plan to protect monarch butterflies from wintering. While praising this move, scientists also know that more needs to be done to protect the survival of a species. That's because, in distant North America, the habitat of monarch butterflies is also in jeopardy in spring and summer.

Monarch butterfly breeding

Every spring, when monarch butterflies return to Earth, they wake up from hibernation in their Mexican habitat and immediately start sprinting for mating. Then the females leave the males and fly north collectively. Monarch butterflies usually mate in winter. When the male monarch butterfly finds a mate, it will spit out a liquid and sprinkle it on the female's tail. They will stop in a field full of milkweed and have a special liking for milkweed, because the female butterfly will lay eggs on the twigs of this plant.

They landed on the leaves, and after they were confirmed to be milkweed with their legs, they laid needle-sized eggs one by one under the leaves. After laying eggs, the blood on the wings will slowly recede from the wings, and finally they have to crawl on the ground like monarch butterflies who can't fly. I will die slowly myself soon. The weak monarch butterfly can only support itself.