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the monarch

A 3,000-mile trip to a place they've never been

No monarch butterfly makes the round trip, yet the migration never gets lost.

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The real story

Each autumn eastern monarchs fly up to 3,000 miles from Canada and the US to a few mountain forests in central Mexico, where millions cluster on fir trees so thickly the branches bend. This 'super generation' lives about eight months. The summer generations live only a few weeks.

Navigating with a sun compass and an internal clock, they find forests they've never seen. In spring they head north and lay eggs, and it takes three or four generations to reach Canada again. The ones that fly south next autumn are the great-great-grandchildren of the last ones who did.

What the narrator says

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The facts we checked

  • Monarchs in eastern North America fly up to about 3,000 miles (4,800 km) south to mountain forests in central Mexico
  • The migrating 'super generation' lives about eight months; summer generations live only a few weeks
  • It takes several generations to fly back north; the ones who return to Mexico have never been there
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