It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s a monarch butterfly! At least that’s what some Texas residents are likely to see fluttering through the sky this time of year.

The butterflies are in the middle of their annual 2,500-mile journey from Mexico to the northern United States and Canada. In recent weeks, many of the orange-and-black winged insects have been spotted in southern states, including Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi.

Some people consider monarchs to be one of the great wonders of the natural world. The butterflies have a unique migration pattern. They live for only a few months—at most. The millions of insects that left Mexico in March are not the same ones that will return to the country in the fall.

The monarchs fluttering about in the southern U.S. right now are racing to complete their leg of the journey before they die. Female monarchs search for milkweed. That is the only plant on which the butterflies can lay their eggs.

"The month of April is a very important time for monarch butterflies," Elizabeth Howard told Weekly Reader. She is the founder of the Web site Journey North, which tracks the monarchs’ migration every year. "The eggs they are laying must grow into adult butterflies, and those butterflies must complete the migration in place of their parents."

The butterflies will continue migrating, laying eggs, and dying as they travel north for the summer. It is usually the great-grandchildren of the original butterflies that return to Mexico in the fall, where they will remain for the winter.

But it’s a risky flight for the butterflies. One challenge facing monarchs this spring is a recent drought in Texas, explains Howard. The milkweed plants that monarchs must lay their eggs on do not grow well in droughts.

Monarch butterflies are also in danger of losing their winter refuge. Upon returning to the southern part of the continent in the fall, the butterflies ride out the winter by clustering on tree branches in a preserve in central Mexico. However, loggers there are illegally chopping down the trees to make room for more farmland.

To protect the land, the Mexican government has sent police officers to patrol the area. In addition, the forests were recognized as a United Nations World Heritage Site in 2008, giving the preserve extra protection against illegal logging. The government hopes those measures will make it possible for monarchs to survive.

Says Mexican official Ernesto Enkerlin, "We are entering into a new phase of the monarch butterfly reserve, one of recovery."

Critical Thinking:
How might the world be different if monarch butterflies became extinct?

Get Writing!
Imagine you are a monarch butterfly flying north for the spring. Write a journal entry about your journey.

Links:
Learn more about monarch butterflies and track their journey on an interactive map.

Learn about efforts to conserve the monarch butterflies’ habitat.