Fall is upon us and it is high time for many animals to be on the move. Millions of birds migrate south each fall. But another animal currently migrating south is the monarch butterfly. The monarch butterflies migrate over 2000 kilometers every fall to reach their wintering grounds in Mexico. It's an astonishing journey for an insect. But not all monarchs migrate. Some populations stay cosy and warm year round on tropical islands in the Pacific ocean. How did these monarchs end up there? And how did they loose their ability to migrate? Micah Freedman, who is currently a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Chicago, realized that museum collections of monarchs could give us unique insights into these questions. In this episode, I talk to Micah about his research on monarchs, why they migrate, and how and why some monarchs lost migration altogether.  

To learn more about monarch migrations, head to the podcast website at klaranorden.com/specimenstories.

Music from https://pixabay.com/music/ and https://www.purple-planet.com.