The Costa Rica News (TCRN) – This year the monarch butterflies (Danaus Danaux) , traveling from the U.S. and Canada to Mexico to hibernate during the winter, came with almost a week late and a in a lesser amount to the state of Michoacan, a situation that worries experts from that country. Possible causes include increased rainfall in recent months and the loss of the places where they lay their eggs, known as milkweeds.
In Costa Rica this type of butterfly also exists, but unlike those countries it does not migrate here. Ricardo Murillo, biologist at the University of Costa Rica (UCR), said here there is no risk of the near disappearance since the dynamic is different.
“We will not see the same effects, but we will see different effects. With the cementing of the countryside, the destruction of habitats, the emergence of more crops such as pineapple, banana and livestock, the population of the monarch butterfly is going down,” said Murillo.
Murillo said that the decrease in the presence of the monarch butterfly is not due to climate change, but rather to habitat destruction, including deforestation.
Alvaro Vega, specialist and owner of Butterfly Metamorphosis, said the concern is focused on the medium and long term, taking into account the possible effects their disappearance.
In Mexico the situation concerned, mainly because monarchs generate lots of tourist visits to shrines where they land and authorities fear that there is a decline among visitors.
Last year, Spanish scientists found that to reach a size of three inches, monarch butterflies migrate 5,000 miles to travel from North America to Cadiz, the only area of the Iberian Peninsula in which this species has been found.
The Costa Rica News (TCRN)
San Jose Costa Rica
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