Winged Warriors: Monarch Migration through Kentucky
Tuesday, September 24 · 6:00 p.m. – 7:00 p.m.
Francis Newman Alden Learning Center in the Ellen T. Leslie Building
$15 | $12 WBG members
The Monarch Butterfly annually performs the longest migration of any insect in the world, from as far north as southern Canada to south-central Mexico, a distance of more than 3000 miles. The butterflies begin their migration south in August, passing through Kentucky in late summer and early fall, and gathering by December at several locations in the mountains south and west of Mexico City. The number of Monarchs that winter at these sites is estimated to be in the hundreds of millions, all having migrated from the north, with some heading back north in the spring. This phenomenon has been going on since well before humans inhabited the Americas.
But once Mexico was inhabited, these butterflies were not ignored, and there is evidence today of widespread prevalence of butterfly symbols dating from as early as 100 BC. They were considered by the Aztecs as the returning souls of warriors slain in battle, and so in more recent times, the Monarch in Mexico has taken on a special symbolic meaning and its image is an important part of the annual Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) celebrations in early November.
Bob Jones has been involved in the monarch migrations since the 1980s, counting and tagging monarchs in California and now here in Kentucky. His presentation will take a look at both the North American migration and the Mesoamerican mythology of this amazing insect.