![]() We can see that under normal conditions, migrating monarchs orient to the southwest in order to reach their destination overwintering sites in Mexico. As a group, the butterflies oriented to the southwest on average. Each butterfly’s average compass bearing is represented by a blue dot on the circle. The above graph plots orientation data from 14 different migrant butterflies. The vast majority of recordings (taken every 200 milliseconds) captured a southwesterly flight bearing.įroy et al. The above histogram summarizes orientation data for a single migrant butterfly in the flight simulator over 15 minutes. Even when the butterfly is manually rotated to a new direction (as in this video), it quickly corrects its bearing to continue on a migratory path. This video depicts a tethered monarch in the flight simulator, recorded from above. During flight, a video recorder monitors the butterfly and the directional recording device sends orientation information to a computer. ![]() ![]() A fan blows air at the monarch from below, mimicking a thermal. The tethered butterfly is suspended in a plastic barrel, excluding buildings, trees, and mountains from view. It may flap its wings and rotate freely, but cannot move vertically or horizontally. To investigate the orientation behavior of migrating monarchs, we use a monarch flight simulator that is a modified version ( Reppert et al., 2004) of the one first described by Henrik Mouritsen and Barrie Frost ( Mouritsen and Frost, 2002).Īn individual monarch butterfly is affixed to a directional recording device using a short length of wire.
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