7. Landscape Science
Spring Migration
acrylic on canvas
100cm x 100cm
Iain White, 2009
Monarch migration back to the north is like a relay race! The original butterfly dies along the way, but the offspring it leaves behind continues on to the north where the cycle will start again in the autumn.
By the time next year's winter migration begins, several summer generations will have lived and died and it will be last year's migrators' great grandchildren that make the trip. Yet somehow these new generations know the way, and follow the same routes their ancestors took - sometimes even returning to the same tree.
Not all populations migrate. There are population of monarchs in California, Florida and Texas that don't migrate.
