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Butterfly and moth migration
Animal migrations provide some of the most amazing wildlife spectacles on earth. Yet many people are astonished to learn that butterflies and moths, which often seem to flutter or bumble about in a haphazard way, are capable of long-distance migration.
The Monarch butterfly is perhaps the best-studied example. In North America each year millions of Monarchs fly south from the northern states and Canada to their overwintering sites in Mexico and California.
It is not just the scale of this migration that is amazing, although a 3000 mile journey is certainly impressive for an insect the size of your palm. It is also the fact that none of the butterflies making the journey have ever undertaken it before and yet they fly unerringly to the same winter roosts that their 'grandparents' or 'great-grandparents' used the previous year.
Many of our familiar butterflies and moths migrate. Some such as the Red Admiral, Painted Lady and Clouded Yellow butterflies and the Humming-bird Hawk-moth and Silver-Y moth recolonise Britain and Ireland every spring, as migrants from southern Europe or even North Africa.
They breed here during the summer months, raising 'home grown' generations which then return south or perish at the onset of winter (although because of climate change Red Admirals in particular are now surviving our winters in increasing numbers).
Some of the migrant moths that regularly reach Britain and Ireland are tiny and others huge: the Diamond-back Moth has a wingspan of just 1.5cm, whereas the Convolvulus Hawk-moth can measure 12cm across.
Migration also brings rare or new butterflies and moths to our shores, which attract considerable interest among recorders and the public alike. Since the year 2000, over 20 migrant moths have been recorded for the first time ever in Britain and a few of these have become established.
There is much that we still don't know and Butterfly Conservation needs your help to track the migration of the Humming-bird Hawk-moth and Painted Lady butterfly from Africa to the UK in 2008. Log your own sightings and see where these species have already been spotted.
For more information about some of our migrant butterflies and day-flying moths download a factsheet or follow the links below: