Mexican experts said Monday that 35 per cent more monarch butterflies arrived this year to spend the winter in mountaintop forests, compared to the previous season.
Experts say the rise may reflect the butterflies’ ability to adapt to more extreme bouts of heat or drought by varying the date when they leave Mexico.
The government commission for natural protected areas said the butterflies’ population covered 2.84 hectares this year, compared to 2.1 hectares last year.
The annual butterfly count doesn’t calculate the individual number of butterflies, but rather the number of acres they cover when they clump together on tree boughs.
Each year the monarchs return to
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