monarch butterfly migration Mexico <div class="greet_block wpgb_cornered"><div class="greet_text"><div class="greet_image"><a href=" rel="nofollow"><img src=" alt="WP Greet Box icon"/></a></div>Hello there! If you are new here, you might want to <a href=" rel="nofollow"><strong>subscribe to the RSS feed</strong></a> for updates on the Trans-Americas Journey. <div style="clear:both"></div></div></div> As another season of epic annual monarch butterfly migration comes to an end here in Mexico, we started thinking about our accidental encounters with the fluttery masses last year. And we do mean accidental. One of the more exciting road signs in Mexico. We were driving along hwy 134 from Mexico City toward Valle de Bravo just minding our own damn business. Yep, all those dark patches are monarch butterflies. Our advice?
Revealing Metamorphosis Before turning into a butterfly, a caterpillar wraps itself in a chrysalis. But what goes on within that casing during the weeks it takes the insect to transform is still a bit of a mystery to science. Now researchers have used high-resolution computer tomography (CT) scans to track the development of the painted lady butterfly (Vanessa cardui), mapping changes in a living individual as it metamorphoses. “The crucial thing in this case is that they examined live material,” said Rolf Beutel, a professor of entomology at Friedrich Schiller University of Jena in Germany, who was not involved in the study. Traditionally, to learn about metamorphosis entomologists have had to dissect pupae at varying stages of development, killing them in the process. “It’s basically the first time a CT has been used to look at the development of a single individual,” said Russell Garwood of the University of Manchester, a geologist who usually studies fossil insects and an author of the paper. T.