Butterfly Migration

University Communication Author

09/25/2017 Added

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Butterflies are on the move right now as they migrate across the country. This year, there have been reports of an unprecedented number of the Painted Lady Butterfly. A University of Nebraska expert explains why we’re seeing the insect in such large numbers.

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[00:00:00.352](birds chirp)
[00:00:03.469]It's just been a really great year for painted ladies.
[00:00:06.072]They're a migratory butterfly.
[00:00:07.725]They start out the year in places
[00:00:09.314]like California and northern Mexico.
[00:00:12.066]And in years that we have El Nino-like rains
[00:00:14.392]in those areas, they have a lot of food supply
[00:00:17.250]during the winter months,
[00:00:18.584]and so they're very successful there.
[00:00:20.258]And then they get to be successful
[00:00:21.548]as they migrate across the country.
[00:00:23.490]It's like a staged invasion.
[00:00:25.261]They go from California to Nevada, further east,
[00:00:28.952]they end up here, and they keep going
[00:00:30.402]until up in the Dakotas and Canada and Wisconsin.
[00:00:34.390]I have seen some monarchs this fall,
[00:00:36.120]and I've seen a few other butterflies, but painted ladies,
[00:00:38.701]we just had a really big bloom of them in 2017.
[00:00:42.264]It seems like we had two times
[00:00:44.354]that this occurred this summer.
[00:00:45.634]Early August maybe, it seemed like there was the first sort
[00:00:48.450]of sightings, maybe late July,
[00:00:50.637]and that was when they were passing through
[00:00:51.917]and going further north,
[00:00:53.474]and now they're coming back,
[00:00:54.477]they're heading to California again.
[00:00:57.037]They tend to favor pink and purple flowers
[00:01:00.172]that offer up a lot of nectar.
[00:01:01.869]So that's what we're seeing here on this sedum.
[00:01:03.522]You can just look around and see all
[00:01:05.242]of the little painted ladies.
[00:01:06.746]But you can also look for things
[00:01:08.208]that have a flat appearance,
[00:01:10.148]so a coneflower, they really like that
[00:01:11.982]'cause it provides a landing pad.
[00:01:14.096]You have to be careful when you use insecticides
[00:01:16.186]that you're not treating the blooming portion of any plant,
[00:01:18.938]because you wanna treat the parts
[00:01:20.259]where the pests are eating,
[00:01:21.722]and you don't wanna treat the part
[00:01:22.842]where the pollinators may visit.
[00:01:24.784]Butterflies are part of our pollinating insect group,
[00:01:27.546]and we just love seeing pollinators succeed,
[00:01:29.594]because the more of them we have, the more our plants
[00:01:32.357]that flower are gonna be successful as well.
[00:01:34.992]Pollinators contribute about $29 billion
[00:01:37.573]to American agriculture,
[00:01:38.906]so they're part of the success of the American farmer.
[00:01:41.829]And without them we wouldn't have foods
[00:01:43.332]that we really enjoy eating.
[00:01:44.826]You wanna see these insects succeed.

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Butterfly Migration

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