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The concept of the <keyword id="22186918" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="butterfly-effect" source="keywords">butterfly effect</keyword> suggests that a <keyword id="6377523" type="General" weightage="100" keywordseo="butterfly" source="Orion">butterfly</keyword> flapping its wings in one part of the world could lead to a storm on the other side of the globe. But what if the butterfly flaps its wings all the way from one part of the world to the other?<br /><br />In a remarkable real-world twist, researchers have documented <keyword id="22186919" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="painted-lady-butterflies" source="keywords">painted lady butterflies</keyword> making an astonishing 4,200-kilometre journey across the Atlantic Ocean—from Western Africa to the shores of <keyword id="346851" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="French-Guiana" source="Orion">French Guiana</keyword> in South America!<br /><cmsannotation type="cmsannotation" annotationid="From flap to finish: Decoding the butterflies’ origins" comment="subhead" text="From flap to finish: Decoding the butterflies’ origins"><span data-til="noop">From flap to finish: Decoding the <keyword id="6572283" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="butterflies" source="Orion">butterflies</keyword>’ origins</span></cmsannotation><br />Back in October 2013, Gerard Talavera from the Botanical Institute of Barcelona at CSIC stumbled upon painted lady butterflies on the Atlantic beaches of French Guiana. This peculiar sighting, considering these butterflies aren’t usually found in South America, sparked an international research effort to trace their origins.<br /><br />The research team employed advanced tools to trace the butterflies’ journey. They started by analysing wind trajectories from the time leading up to the butterflies’ arrival in October 2013. The data revealed unusually favourable wind conditions that could support a <keyword id="21876732" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="transatlantic-flight" source="keywords">transatlantic flight</keyword> from West Africa, suggesting these butterflies might have flown across the ocean.<br /><br /><div type="image" title="atlantic winds" msid="111280804" hostid="261" sizebytes="43242" caption="&amp;lt;p&amp;gt;Wind backtracking shows the transoceanic route followed by the painted lady butterflies.&amp;lt;/p&amp;gt;"></div><br />By sequencing the genomes of the butterflies and comparing them with global populations, the researchers found a genetic closeness to African and European butterflies, ruling out North American origins and reinforcing the theory of an oceanic flight.<br /><br />The team then used cutting-edge molecular techniques to sequence the DNA of pollen grains carried by the butterflies. They identified plant species that only grow in tropical Africa, indicating that the butterflies had nectared on African flowers before their oceanic voyage.<br /><br />Finally, they analysed hydrogen and strontium isotopes in the butterflies' wings, which serve as a chemical fingerprint of their place of origin. The isotope analysis, combined with habitat models for larval growth, pointed to a possible natal origin in Western Europe, possibly France, Ireland, the United Kingdom or Portugal.<br /><br />Combined, these findings suggest that the painted lady butterflies took birth in Europe, migrated to West Africa, and then made an epic flight across the Atlantic to reach the eastern coast of South America!<br /><br />“We usually see butterflies as symbols of the fragility of beauty, but science shows us that they can perform incredible feats. There is still much to discover about their capabilities,” said Roger Vila, a researcher at the Institute of Evolutionary Biology (CSIC-Pompeu Fabra University) and co-author of the study.<br /><cmsannotation type="cmsannotation" annotationid="Harnessing the Saharan winds" comment="subhead" text="Harnessing the Saharan winds"><span data-til="noop">Harnessing the <keyword id="22186920" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="Saharan-winds" source="keywords">Saharan winds</keyword></span></cmsannotation><br />Elaborating on how they managed this feat, Eric Toro-Delgado, one of the article's co-authors, explained: “The butterflies could only have completed this flight using a strategy alternating between active flight, which is costly energetically, and gliding the wind. We estimate that without wind, the butterflies could have flown a maximum of 780 km before consuming all their fat and, therefore, their energy.”<br /><br />The butterflies likely made use of the Saharan air layer, a conveyor of dust from Africa to the Americas. These wind currents, known to fertilise the Amazon with Saharan dust, also appear to be a highway for living organisms.<br /><br />In fact, this transatlantic flight points towards the existence of natural aerial highways linking continents, which could enable species dispersal on a far greater scale than we ever thought possible.<br /><br />With global warming and evolving climate patterns, scientists warn that we might see more pronounced shifts and a surge in such long-distance dispersal events. These changes could profoundly influence biodiversity and ecosystems across the globe.<br /><br />These findings were recently published in <em>Nature Communications</em> and can be accessed <a href="https://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41467-024-49079-2">here</a>.

These butterflies flew across the Atlantic Ocean, winging their way from Africa to South America!

<ul class="summary-list"><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/painted-lady-butterflies-migrating-across-southern-california-2019-3">Monarch butterflies</a> migrating to <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/port-congestion-supply-chain-california-call-for-state-of-emergency-2021-11">California</a> made a promising rebound from the edge of <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/photos-animals-added-to-extinction-list-birds-fish-mollusks-2021-10">extinction</a>.</li><li><keyword id="11892889" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="california" source="Orion">California</keyword> counted fewer than 2,000 <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/monarch-butterflies-texas-spring-2019-4">monarchs</a> in 2020. So far this year, there are more than 100,000.</li></ul><p>Tens of thousands of <keyword id="12664212" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="monarch" source="Orion">monarch</keyword> <keyword id="6572283" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="butterflies" source="Orion">butterflies</keyword> are flocking to the California coast for the winter, filling tree branches with fluttering orange wings — a remarkable rebound from years of near-extinction.</p><p>Millions of monarchs used to winter in California each year, but their numbers haven't breached half a million since the 1990s. In 2018, the population crashed to new lows: there were fewer than 30,000 monarchs in the state, according to a <a href="https://www.westernmonarchcount.org/data/">count</a> that the Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation has conducted each winter since 1997.</p><p>The butterflies hit a devastating record low last year, numbering fewer than 2,000 across California.</p><p>"We were pretty concerned last year that we were potentially facing a reality where there would no longer be monarch butterflies in the Western US," Sarina Jepsen, director of the endangered species program at the Xerces Society, told Insider.</p><p>So far this year, however, volunteers have counted more than 100,000 monarch butterflies. That tally is expected to grow as volunteers continue counting through December 5. The Xerces Society will publish its final report in January.</p><p>"We're really happy about those numbers," Jepsen said. Still, she added, "this is not yet recovery of the Western monarch population."</p><h2>A lucky year for monarch butterflies may buy them time</h2><div type="image" title="monarch butterflies flock covering pine branches" height="1600" width="2133" msid="88075891" hostid="261"></div><p>Though this is a hopeful resurgence, scientists don't know what's causing it and aren't sure it will last. Instead of a meaningful recovery, the uptick could be simple luck.</p><p>"It is not uncommon at all for any insect population to bounce around from year to year, to have pretty dramatic shifts in the size of its population," Jepsen said.</p><p>Still, this year's explosion of butterflies could be a sign that it's not too late to pull monarchs back from the brink of <keyword id="12228906" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="extinction" source="Orion">extinction</keyword>. The butterflies are one of <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/insect-apocalypse-ecosystem-collapse-food-insecurity-2019-11">nearly half a million insect species</a> declining in the face of pesticides, habitat destruction, and climate change. </p><h2>Scientists aren't sure what's making monarch populations so 'bouncy'</h2><div type="image" title="five monarch butterflies on a dark mossy tree trunk" height="1665" width="2220" msid="88075893" hostid="261"></div><p>Low butterfly populations can be especially "bouncy," fluctuating greatly from year to year, biologists Emma Pelton of the Xerces Society, Elizabeth Crone of Tufts University, and Cheryl Schultz of Washington State University, explained in a <a href="https://xerces.org/blog/bounciness-of-butterflies">blog post</a> for the Xerces Society earlier this month.</p><p>Small populations mean individual butterflies aren't competing with each other for resources, the biologists wrote. If it's a good year for plants they eat, like milkweed, there's plenty to eat, and room for the population to boom. And because they can produce three or four generations per year, monarch populations can spike rapidly.</p><p>Scientists aren't sure which factors are driving this year's swell. They can only speculate for now.</p><p>It could be good weather in the monarch's breeding grounds across Mexico and California. Butterflies benefit from warm, dry summers, followed by cool falls. Or the boom could be linked to changes in the timing and location of California's wildfires, which might affect the butterflies' <keyword id="11920873" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="migration" source="Orion">migration</keyword>.</p><p>A third possibility could be an influx of Eastern monarchs joining the Western migration, although Eastern monarch populations are also declining, occupying 80% less forest than they did two decades ago, according to the <a href="https://biologicaldiversity.org/w/news/press-releases/eastern-monarch-butterfly-population-falls-again-2021-02-25/">Center for Biological Diversity</a>.</p><p>A brief relief from conditions that hurt monarch migration could also be fueling the swell. Scientists are studying whether pesticide use in California's Central Valley could contribute to monarchs' decline. They're also investigating "resident" monarchs that live in California year round, which some researchers suspect may <a href="https://news.umich.edu/migrating-monarchs-that-mix-with-year-round-residents-have-higher-rates-of-parasite-infection/">spread parasites</a> to migrating monarchs.</p><p>"With only one year of a population increase, it is impossible to say whether this is the population clawing its way back from the brink, or a blip in the continuation of the migration's decline. We won't know this until we have more years with either more or fewer monarchs," the biologists wrote.</p><h2>Monarchs have a long climb back from the edge of extinction</h2><p>While this year's count is promising, it's still only half of what the Western monarch population was five years ago.</p><div type="image" title="graph shows declining population of western monarch butterflies" height="1765" width="2700" msid="88075894" hostid="261"></div><p>The US Fish and Wildlife Service <a href="https://www.fws.gov/savethemonarch/pdfs/Monarch-SSA-report.pdf">estimates</a> that there's a 99% chance that Western monarch populations will reach a point within 60 years where extinction is inevitable. For populations in the East, the probability of extinction inevitability in that time frame is roughly 74%.</p><p>This year's rebound doesn't necessarily improve those odds.</p><p>What would tip the odds in the monarch's favor is restoring their habitats, both in their Mexico breeding grounds and across California, Jepsen said. That involves planting more native wildflowers and milkweed, especially in state parks.</p><p>Reducing insecticide use along the butterflies' migration path in the Central Valley could also help, although scientists are still researching the effect the chemicals have on monarchs.</p><p>Money for pollinator preservation folded into President Joe Biden's $1 trillion infrastructure bill could help give monarchs a boost. Called the <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/senate-bill/806">Monarch and Pollinator Highway Act</a>, the legislation creates $10 million in grants for local governments to build pollinator-friendly habitats alongside highways and roads.</p><p>"There's a lot of work to do to recover the population," Jepsen said, adding, "But these new numbers give us a bit of hope and a bit of time to implement some of these conservation actions."</p>

California has 50 times more monarch butterflies than last year — a puzzling blip in their path to extinction

<ul class="summary-list"><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/california-monarch-butterflies-make-promising-puzzling-rebound-2021-12">California's monarch butterflies</a> made a miraculous rebound from nearly disappearing in 2020.</li><li>I visited Pacific Grove, AKA "Butterfly Town, USA," to see the monarch migration for the first time.</li></ul><p>PACIFIC GROVE, California — I was afraid if I didn't see them now, someday it could be too late.</p><p>I felt the same way about seeing Venice, and every forest in California.</p><p>I had to see the monarch butterflies before they were gone.</p><p>You've probably heard of the <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/animals-travel-farthest-migration-map-monarch-butterfly-animation-video-2017-10">great monarch migration</a>, when the fluttering insects leave Canada in swarms each fall and fly 3,000 miles to Mexico.</p><div type="image" title="monarch butterflies fill blue sky and tree branches" height="1498" width="1998" msid="96483075" hostid="261"></div><p>But you might not know that Western monarchs spend winter in California instead.</p><p>Long-time residents of Pacific Grove tell mystical stories of shimmering curtains of butterflies filling the sky, Natalie Johnston, a local butterfly naturalist, told me. Residents have told her how they would open the front door and their entire garden would seem to spring into the air — monarchs disturbed from rest.</p><div type="image" title="monarch butterflies fill a blue sky" height="1500" width="1999" msid="96483076" hostid="261"></div><p>I wasn't expecting anything quite that dramatic when I drove to "Butterfly Town, USA" in late November.</p><p>I knew the monarchs' numbers had fallen drastically since those days. Still, I expected to be awed by my first monarch migration. I thought it might feel like stepping into a long-gone world, that orange-and-black wings would flit through the air above, and at least a full tree or two would be alive with butterflies.</p><div type="image" title="pink arrows point to two branches on a tall pine tree" height="1599" width="733" msid="96483078" hostid="261"></div><p>Instead, I found a sad, sparse display of their decline: In a <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/california-monarch-butterflies-make-promising-puzzling-rebound-2021-12">famous monarch grove, during a hopeful year</a>, the butterflies filled just two branches on a single tree.</p><p>It was a jarring snapshot of a larger crisis.</p><p>Like monarchs, countless species of insects and other creatures have been teetering on the edge of extinction for years.</p><p>The world as we once knew it is fading alongside them.</p><p>"We've gotten used to something that's a pretty diminished version of what it was," Emma Pelton, a biologist at the Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation, told me.</p><p>Still, those two branches represent a cautious hope. In 2020, there were no monarchs in Pacific Grove.</p><div type="image" title="monarch butterflies clustered on two pine tree branches" height="729" width="1600" msid="96483079" hostid="261"></div><p>If we look at the forest surrounding this lonely butterfly tree and how it came to be this way, it can teach us a lot about our precarious future.</p><h2>The Western monarch migration isn't what it used to be</h2><p>Millions of monarchs used to settle across California each year, but their numbers haven't breached half a million since the 1990s, when volunteers began <a href="https://www.westernmonarchcount.org/data/">counting</a> the migrating monarchs each fall.</p><p>In 2018, the population crashed to new lows: They counted fewer than 30,000 monarchs in the state.</p><div type="image" title="map shows orange sites along california" height="652" width="870" msid="96483081" hostid="261"></div><p>Then California's monarchs plummeted to an abysmal 2,000 butterflies in 2020. There were none in Pacific Grove. Scientists feared they were watching the last gasp before extinction.</p><p>"It was frightening," Johnston said.</p><p>But California's monarchs made an astonishing rebound. Volunteers have counted more than 300,000 so far this year.</p><div type="image" title="cluster of monarch butterflies hanging from a tree" height="1500" width="1999" msid="96483082" hostid="261"></div><p>Those numbers are still dangerously low, and I knew that — <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/california-monarch-butterflies-make-promising-puzzling-rebound-2021-12">I had written about it</a>. I wasn't expecting the sky to be swarming with monarchs, or all the trees to be shimmering with their wings. Still, as I stepped onto the trail winding through the sanctuary, I saw a pair of orange wings fluttering high overhead and my heart leapt.</p><p>At that point, volunteers had counted 12,300 monarchs in the Pacific Grove Monarch Butterfly Sanctuary, a stand of pine, cypress, and eucalyptus trees where the butterflies cluster. Surely that must be a sizeable flock, I thought. That's a number you simply can't ignore.</p><p>But the skies were clear as I walked through, with the occasional stray butterfly flitting above. Each tree was bare, except a single Monterey pine, where all 12,000-plus butterflies were clustered. If it weren't for the people crowded beneath the tree, I might have missed it entirely.</p><h2>'It's nothing, it's quiet, it's empty'</h2><div type="image" title="cluster of monarch butterflies on a branch" height="540" width="720" msid="96483083" hostid="261"></div><p>Other visitors murmured about how meager the monarch colony looked:</p><p>"Well there aren't that many, are there?"</p><p>"Is it just this one tree?"</p><p>The two branches were dripping with butterflies, slowly batting their wings open and closed in the glow of sunset, alternating between the deep orange-and-black pattern on the tops of their wings and the muted reverse on their undersides.</p><p>I stared at them, mesmerized. But they filled such a small portion of my field of vision, about 20 feet above. I zoomed the camera on my phone as far as it would go, trying to take a decent photo. Instead of joy, I felt a somber reverence.</p><div type="image" title="view up through a grove of trees to blue sky" height="733" width="982" msid="96483085" hostid="261"></div><p>I had the same uneasy feeling in my stomach that I got hiking on a ridge in Kings Canyon National Park this summer, when suddenly the forest opened up into a giant burn scar, with the blackened skeletons of trees stretching down an ashy hillside.</p><p>I walked through the rest of the monarch grove, looking for more butterflies. But the air and the branches were still. I passed a nonchalant deer and a small bird, but no monarchs.</p><p>"That's the ecological wound," Pelton said. "It's nothing, it's quiet, it's empty. It's '<a href="http://www.rachelcarson.org/SilentSpring.aspx">Silent Spring</a>.'"</p><p>She was referring to a landmark book in the environmental movement. Rachel Carson's 1962 classic documented the echoing absence of birds across the US, as their numbers steeply dropped due to widespread use of the highly toxic pesticide DDT.</p><div type="image" title="least tern white gray bird with black head and long orange beak sits on two eggs on a beach" height="1434" width="1913" msid="96483088" hostid="261"></div><p>Similarly, the main drivers of monarchs' collapse are loss of habitat, the proliferation of pesticides, and a changing climate that alters the seasons and weather conditions the butterflies rely on — the same reasons that so many insect populations are collapsing.</p><p>Monarchs are beloved and beautiful creatures, but they're just one of roughly <a href="https://games-cdn.washingtonpost.com/notes/prod/default/documents/1c572aca-fe3d-4b5f-94d9-1885bfee7e7a/note/7561fdf9-27ed-4fa0-845c-dbef31bb3b0c.pdf#page=1">half a million</a> insect species on the brink of extinction.</p><div type="image" title="various extinct butterflies different colors patterns sizes displayed against a black background" height="1498" width="1998" msid="96483091" hostid="261"></div><p>By some <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0006320718313636">estimates</a>, 40% of the world's insect species face extinction in the next few decades. Scientists are deeply concerned about this apocalyptic disappearance, since so much of life on Earth — humans included — relies on insects for pollination, food, decomposing dead things, and pest control.</p><h2>Monarchs are bouncing around the brink of extinction, but there's still hope</h2><p>Butterfly populations are naturally "bouncy," Pelton said, especially when their numbers are so low.</p><p>Though California's monarchs have rebounded from the brink of extinction in the last two years, that's "no guarantee that they're not going to bounce back down to nearly zero," she said.</p><p>She fears next time, they may not bounce back.</p><div type="image" title="monarch butterfly on small yellow flowers with bees background blue sky" height="1666" width="2222" msid="96483092" hostid="261"></div><p>Last year's recovery drew lots of attention, and Johnston pointed to signs of progress in the months since. In July, the secretary of the interior announced $1 million in grants for Western monarch conservation, and the International Union for Conservation of Nature dubbed the monarch butterfly endangered.</p><p>The state of California also <a href="https://xerces.org/blog/california-moves-toward-regulating-neonicotinoids-in-absence-of-federal-action">proposed new restrictions</a> on a class of insecticides that harm pollinators like monarchs, and the state's Supreme Court secured a <a href="https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2022-09-23/bumblebees-can-be-protected-as-fish-california-court-rules">loophole</a> that allows insects to be protected under the California Endangered Species Act.</p><p>"In order for there to be hope for the future, people need to take action. However, it is very difficult for people to take action unless they have hope," Johnston said. "It seems that the monarch butterflies of 2021 were that perfect catalyst to get people to understand that nature can recover when we choose to protect it."</p><div type="image" title="Monarch Butterfly Mexico" height="2333" width="3111" msid="96483165" hostid="261"></div><p>Johnston said lots of people came to the sanctuary in 2021 saying they had never seen the monarchs before and wanted to glimpse their rebound.</p><p>That's what brought me to Pacific Grove. I wrote about the butterflies' recovery in 2021, and decided to go see them when they returned in 2022.</p><p>Johnston and Pelton both told me about <a href="https://esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/fee.1794#:~:text=In%20a%20nutshell%3A,of%20experience%20of%20past%20conditions" target="_blank" rel="noopener">"shifting baselines" in ecology</a>. Basically, in your head, the baseline state of the natural world is what you saw when you were a child.</p><p>"[People] ascribe their childhood as the golden years of how things should be, not understanding that, no, the world was already rapidly changing, was already not in a healthy state when you were a child," Johnston said.</p><p>When I was a child, I didn't see monarch butterflies, but they were already in decline.</p><p>Today's children could reach adulthood in a world where no monarchs settle in California.</p><p>Or, depending on the decisions people make now, they could grow up to see monarchs filling the sky again.</p><p>As the lone butterfly tree made clear, California's monarchs are in a tenuous — but possibly salvageable — state. What else could we save if we had hope to protect it?</p><p><em><strong>Correction: December 28, 2022</strong> — An earlier version of this story misstated the origins of the Western monarch butterfly count. It began with volunteers counting butterflies in the fall.</em></p>

Monarch butterflies made a historic rebound this year, but my photos from 'Butterfly Town, USA' are disappointing and sad

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Tommy Fisher, 51, spent $30 million to build a 3-mile wall in <keyword id="125782" type="CITY" weightage="60" keywordseo="RIO-GRANDE">Rio Grande</keyword>, <keyword id="15710" type="ENTERTAINMENT" weightage="60" keywordseo="texas">Texas</keyword>. </li><li>It's made up of 15,000 steel posts that run along the river separating US and Mexico in the area. </li><li>He's now looking for someone to buy it, reported Bloomberg.</li></ul><p>Last year, at a cost of $30 million, Tommy Fisher finished building a private 3-mile wall at the <keyword id="399516" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="US-Mexico-border">US-Mexico border</keyword> in Texas. Now the 51-year-old is searching for someone to buy it, <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2021-07-22/trump-border-wall-builder-tommy-fisher-is-looking-for-a-buyer?utm_medium=social&amp;cmpid=socialflow-twitter-businessweek&amp;utm_campaign=socialflow-organic&amp;utm_content=businessweek&amp;utm_source=twitter&amp;sref=BLKWHazcer&amp;sref=BLKWHazc">Bloomberg</a> reported.</p><p>It's looking to be a tough sell, especially since President Joe Biden has rolled back construction on his predecessor's wall (though Biden's chief of homeland security did say in April that the administration might try to <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/biden-restart-border-wall-construction-trump-pledge-gaps-2021-4">fill "gaps"</a> in the existing barrier). <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/white-house-trump-returns-2-billion-military-border-wall-mexico-2021-6">Just last month</a>, Biden returned <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/briefing-room/2021/06/11/fact-sheet-department-of-defense-and-department-of-homeland-security-plans-for-border-wall-funds/">$2.2 billion</a> to the military that had been allocated to building a wall under the Trump administration.</p><p>According to Bloomberg, Fisher's wall, which runs along the Rio Grande, consists of "15,000 18-foot-tall steel bollards" spaced 5 inches apart.</p><p>Fisher told Bloomberg he started thinking about building the wall as a personal project when Donald Trump got elected in 2016. A Republican donor and frequent <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/05/24/fox-news-continues-be-most-effective-lobbying-organization-trumps-washington/">Fox News contributor</a>, Fisher told the outlet: "I was like: 'This would be really fun. This would be a project that would be remembered, like the Hoover Dam.'"</p><p>In 2019, <a href="https://webuildthewall.us/about-us/">We Build the Wall</a> - an organization dedicated to crowdsourcing funds to build a <keyword id="874262" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="border-wall">border wall</keyword> - paid Fisher's company Fisher Industries $6.9 million to build a half-mile section of wall in New Mexico, Bloomberg reported.</p><p>We Build the Wall was founded by Brian Kolfage, a US veteran, and co-led by the former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon.</p><p>In late 2019, Fisher started building a second stretch in Texas after receiving an additional $1.5 million. He later parted ways with the organization, and continued building the second wall; its cost eventually ballooned to $30 million - 20 times the original estimate.</p><p>In 2019, Kolfage, Bannon, and two others were indicted on suspicion of defrauding donors of $25 million in connection with the organization, according to court papers seen by <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/steve-bannon-arrested-charged-with-fraud-2020-8">Insider</a>. Bannon was given a <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-will-pardon-steve-bannon-cnn-2021-1">pretrial pardon</a> by Trump just before he left office. Kolfage later faced additional <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/we-build-the-wall-cofounder-kolfage-indicted-tax-case-2021-5">tax-fraud</a> charges.</p><p>Fisher's work with We Build the Wall helped him score more than <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/trump-border-wall-tommy-fisher/2020/09/14/8176798a-ed52-11ea-a21a-0fbbe90cfd8c_story.html">$2 billion in contracts</a> from the Trump administration - despite, as <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/trump-border-wall-tommy-fisher/2020/09/14/8176798a-ed52-11ea-a21a-0fbbe90cfd8c_story.html">The Washington Post reported</a>, portions of his builds being plagued by design problems and poor construction.</p><p>In addition to structural issues, Fisher's project has been the subject of pushback from environmental groups and neighbors who oppose the wall, <a href="https://www.npr.org/2020/10/14/922153898/his-private-border-wall-enraged-neighbors-then-he-landed-2b-to-build-walls-for-t">NPR</a> reported. They said it was built too close to the river and could worsen flooding.</p><p>Last year, the <a href="https://nationalbutterflycenter.org/about-nbc/history">National Butterfly Center</a>, a nonprofit conservation organization, sued WBTW and Fisher Industries, saying the wall may disrupt the rivers flow and cause flooding on both sides, per <a href="https://apnews.com/article/nd-state-wire-donald-trump-us-news-weather-storms-5c79c1f025b4c3de879828d1e4b6e59d">the Associated Press</a>. Meanwhile, the<a href="https://www.npr.org/2020/10/14/922153898/his-private-border-wall-enraged-neighbors-then-he-landed-2b-to-build-walls-for-t"> US International Boundary and Water Commission also filed a suit</a>, saying the water diverted from the wall's construction could shift border lines between US and Mexico.</p><p>Fisher Industries did not immediately respond to a request from Insider for comment for this article.</p><p>Despite both lawsuits, Fisher continued to sink money into his wall project, he told Bloomberg, because he believed he was building the "Lamborghini" of walls and someone would buy it.</p><p>He's hoping that as border control remains a problem, the federal government will be moved to take over his private wall.</p><p>In May this year, US authorities encountered more than 180,000 migrants at the southwestern border, according to data from the <a href="https://www.cbp.gov/newsroom/stats/southwest-land-border-encounters">US Customs and Border Protection</a> - the most in 20 years. More than <a href="https://www.cbp.gov/newsroom/stats/southwest-land-border-encounters-by-component">50,000</a> people came in through the Rio Grande Valley, where Fisher's 3-mile wall is.</p>

A man who spent $30 million building a 3-mile wall between the US and Mexico is looking for someone to buy it

<p>As far as humans travel, it's nothing compared to some animals. To put just how large this distance is into perspective, we've put together an <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/category/bi-animation">animation</a> showing these animals and their incredible distances. The following is a transcription.</p><p>No matter how much traveling you do, these creatures have you beat. These are the animals with the longest migrations.</p><p>In the Yukon, Porcupine caribou travel 3,000 miles. This is the longest migration by land of any mammal on Earth.</p><p>Monarch butterflies fly about 3,000 miles each year. Some will travel all the way from Canada to Mexico.</p><p>Leatherback turtles will swim 10,000 miles across the Pacific between the US and Indonesia.</p><p>The globe skimmer dragonfly has that name for a reason. It crosses the Indian ocean between East Africa and India. The total trip is about 10,000 miles.</p><p>Humpback whales travel over 10,440 miles from Costa Rica to Antarctica and back. It is the longest mammal migration on Earth.</p><p>Great white sharks migrate 12,400 miles between South Africa to Western Australia and back.</p><p>But no one can cover more ground than the birds! The sooty shearwater travels 40,000 miles. It flies between New Zealand and Alaska.</p><p>At the top of the list is the arctic tern. It has been recorded migrating over 44,000 miles, flying from the Arctic to Antarctica.</p><p>You thought your commute was bad?</p>

Animated map shows just how far these animals travel to migrate

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image"></div><p></p></div></div></p>
<p dir="ltr">The monarch butterfly, one of the world's most beloved insects, is best known for its striking orange wings and spectacular annual migration - but the butterfly's most famous traits are also its most mysterious.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Until now, scientists haven't known much about the genetics behind the insect's bright colors or its exhausting flight down the continent of North America. But a group of researchers from around the world teamed up to explore the genetic underpinnings of these amazing characteristics by sequencing the genomes of 101 butterflies, both monarchs and related species. Their results - <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nature13812">published October 1 in the journal Nature</a> - were completely unexpected.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Here are some of their amazing findings.</p>
<p dir="ltr"><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image"></div><p></p></div></div></p>
<p dir="ltr"><strong>Everything we thought we knew about monarch evolution is wrong.</strong></p>
<p dir="ltr">It's a known fact that not all monarchs migrate: While it's true that the most famous populations journey thousands of miles each year from Canada down to Mexico, some populations just stay put all year. What wasn't a known fact until now was how this migration pattern evolved. Scientists had always assumed that the non-migrating populations evolved first, and the migrating butterflies developed their traveling tendencies later on - after all, this evolutionary pattern is true of other migrating insects and even true of many migratory birds.</p>
<p dir="ltr">So the researchers in this study were shocked when their genetic analysis suggested that the migrating populations were actually older than the non-migrating ones. "We really analyzed the data in many different ways to convince ourselves of what we were seeing," said study author Marcus Kronforst, a researcher at the University of Chicago. "We really went into it with a good idea of where we though the monarch came from and how it came to disperse across the globe."</p>
<p dir="ltr">The finding "teaches us a great deal about the origin of monarchs' amazing migration, and subsequent loss in populations that no longer migrate," said Karen Oberhauser, a professor and monarch expert at the University of Minnesota. Kronforst and his colleagues believe the monarch butterfly first sprang up in the southern United States or northern Mexico and then dispersed out from there, over time losing its ability to migrate in certain populations. Today, the monarch is found throughout North and South America, Hawaii, and parts of the South Pacific, including Australia and New Zealand.</p>
<p dir="ltr"><strong>Speaking of migration, there's something funny about the monarch's flight muscles.</strong></p>
<p dir="ltr"><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_left"><div><div class="image"></div><p></p></div></div>The researchers found that migratory ability is linked to a single gene, which codes for a protein involved in building the insects' flight muscles and helping them function. They hypothesized that something about the monarch's flight must be different between migratory and non-migratory butterflies, since migratory monarchs fly so many more miles every year.</p>
<p dir="ltr">To figure it out, the researchers tested flight metabolic rates, or the amount of energy used during flight, in both migratory and non-migratory specimens. They found that metabolic rates during flight were lower in the migratory butterflies.</p>
<p dir="ltr">The researchers believe this means that the migratory monarchs use their flight muscles more efficiently than their non-migratory counterparts - an important feature in a little insect making such long trips.<br><br>The researchers don't yet know exactly what mechanisms have granted the migratory butterflies their lower flight metabolism, but it's an area they're interested in exploring.</br></br></p>
<p dir="ltr"><strong>Monarchs get their color in a totally different way than we thought.</strong></p>
<p dir="ltr"><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image"></div><p></p></div></div>Most monarchs are characterized by their famous orange wings - but there's actually a subspecies found in Hawaii that has white wings instead, like the little guy shown on the right.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Until now, Kronforst said he and his colleagues assumed that the white butterflies weren't able to produce the stunning pigment that makes their orange cousins so famous. But when the researchers finally pinpointed the gene most strongly associated with pigmentation in the monarch, it wasn't what they were expecting.</p>
<p dir="ltr">The gene in question codes for a protein called <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK21724/">myosin</a>, which is involved in transporting molecules around the body. This means the white butterflies are probably capable of producing that orange pigment - they just can't transport it into the scales in their wings.</p>
<p dir="ltr">"The myosin has to transport that pigment up into the scale, and in these white butterflies I'm guessing the myosin is not doing a good job of that," Kronforst said. "The pigment doesn't get put in the scale, so the butterfly turns out white instead of orange."</p>
<p dir="ltr"><strong>We still have a lot of questions to answer.</strong></p>
<p dir="ltr">The study reveals a range of exciting new information about the monarch's most beloved traits - but it also opens up a host of questions. "We've found genes and we can kind of guess at why they're important for the biology we're studying, but we don't know the mechanisms," Kronforst said. The next step will be for him and his colleagues to figure out exactly how these genes work. They also hope to look at other related species of butterflies to see if the same genes are doing the same things.</p>
<p>The research comes at an interesting time for the butterfly: Monarchs are in the midst of a <a href="http://monarchwatch.org/bring-back-the-monarchs/campaign/the-details">severe decline</a>, thanks largely to habitat destruction and extreme weather events. In the last 20 years, their populations have <a href="http://www.newsweek.com/monarch-butterflies-have-declined-90-conservationists-seek-extra-protection-267094">declined by 90 percent</a> and fewer are seen migrating every year, alarming conservationists and butterfly enthusiasts alike.</p>
<p>It's an issue Oberhauser feels the study helps to highlight. "As an ecologist turned conservation biologist, I am particularly struck by the way in which this study illustrates the tragedy of negative human impacts on species," she said. "Every time we lose a species, we lose a treasure-trove of amazing biology that we are just beginning to uncover."</p>
<p>Kronforst isn't sure his current research will have any practical applications that will help save the butterfly, but he does hope that his study will raise awareness about the monarch's plight."It does sort of put a bit of an exclamation point on the current crisis with the plummeting numbers of migrating monarchs," Kronforst said. "Prior to doing this study, I thought that the migration of monarch butterflies was a recent phenomenon, but our results suggest that these little butteflies have been doing this for millions of year. So the thought that they are perhaps going to stop doing it in our lifetime is very scary and sad."</p>

Giant Butterfly Study Unlocks The Monarch's Most Mysterious Traits

<ul class="summary-list"><li>The <keyword id="6354692" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="Travel">travel</keyword> photographer Prashant Ashoka, 32, built a home on the Palo Huérfano volcano in Mexico.</li><li>The off-the-grid home, which has a rainwater swimming pool, is powered by solar electricity.</li><li>The 800-square-foot property, with its mirrored facade, is designed to disappear into the landscape.</li></ul><p>When most people go for a hike in the countryside, they will come home with Instagram shots or memories. But when the travel photographer Prashant Ashoka went for a trek through the Los Picachos mountains in Mexico in 2017, he returned as the owner of a plot of land - on the side of an extinct volcano.</p><p>"It was rough and wild, covered in huge boulders, mesquite trees, and cactus," Ashoka told Insider. "But it was beautiful at the same time."</p><p>After trekking through oak forests, along riverbeds, and across highland plains, Ashoka met a local farmer and struck up a conversation. Ashoka told him about his dream to build a home in such a remote place. The farmer said there was a plot of land next to his house that was for sale and took him to a site that was high on the mountainside.</p><p>"I could understand why no one had bought it," Ashoka said. "There was no road access, no water and electricity, and it was on a 45-degree incline. Even for farming it was a useless plot of land."</p><p>But the Singaporean had already fallen in love with this piece of wilderness and knew it was here where he wanted to build his new home.</p><div type="image" title="Casa Eterea 18 by Prashant Ashoka" height="2248" width="2997" msid="81645910" hostid="261"></div><h2><strong>Blending into the background</strong></h2><p>Ashoka had moved to Mexico on a whim. He was drawn to the UNESCO World Heritage city of San Miguel de Allende with its Bohemian vibe and rich heritage of writers and artists.</p><p>But Ashoka didn't want his home to be a blot on the landscape that he'd fallen in love with - he wanted it to blend into the background. Money and time dictated the size, and he started to sketch out his plan for his two-room home after watching YouTube videos. Ashoka also shared his plans with architect friends so they could give him pointers.</p><p>After getting his plans approved by a structural engineer, he hired a project manager to oversee the build. But while Ashoka thought it would be a yearlong project, it took three years to complete. "The project changed from one year to three because I didn't have any experience in architecture, design, or building," he said. "It also took a long time to get building permission and complete the necessary paperwork."</p><p>The novice architect wasn't just creating a home, however, but an art piece. Ashoka's design for his house echoed the V-shaped ravine of the mountain range. He also wrapped the building in a mirrored facade so it would blend into the landscape. During the day, <a href="https://www.instagram.com/casa_eterea/">Casa Eterea</a> (meaning Ethereal House in Spanish) reflects the clouds in the sky and, at night, the stars.</p><div type="image" title="Casa Eterea 3_by Prashant Ashoka" height="3241" width="4321" msid="81645918" hostid="261"></div><h2>Using the landscape as part of the design</h2><p>Ashoka installed solar panels to generate electricity, created a rainwater-catchment system on the roof, and positioned the building so it was able to naturally regulate in the desert landscape and use the mountain for shelter. Volcanic rock was also collected and used in the foundations of the house.</p><p>Including these eco-friendly elements, Ashoka said, felt like the right thing to do. "It was my first attempt at building a home," he said, "and I wanted to do it properly."</p><p>In an effort to minimally disrupt the wildlife and the landscape, he created a mirrored glass that would be safe for birds. He worked with a local glass designer, Oskar Chertudi Maya, to create a striped UV glass, which would be visible to birds but not to the naked eye.</p><div type="image" title="Casa Eterea 7 by Prashant Ashoka" height="2000" width="2668" msid="81645920" hostid="261"></div><h2>No luxury was sacrificed</h2><p>The eco-friendly nature of the home doesn't mean Casa Eterea is devoid of luxuries. Ashoka designed a swimming pool and worked with local artisans to create a freestanding copper bathtub.</p><p>To execute the project, Ashoka had to learn light engineering skills. And that wasn't the only challenge he faced: During the summer, the region experiences torrential rain, which meant the dirt road Ashoka built to his mountainside property became impassable. Ashoka would usually travel each day from his home in San Miguel de Allende to the building site.</p><p>"Construction halted three times," he said. "I would also get my car stuck in the mud, and I would have to shout down the mountain to my neighbors so they could come and rescue me."</p><div type="image" title="Casa Eterea 10 by Prashant Ashoka" height="2000" width="2668" msid="81645921" hostid="261"></div><p>Ashoka said he was worried about what the local farmers would think about this modern house. But on the day the mirrored glass was installed, his fears were allayed.</p><p>"One of our neighbors who was walking past the house to tend his cows said, 'Your house is really interesting - it's always shifting, it's always moving…' I thought that was so great," Ashoka said. "That was my biggest compliment."</p><h2>Final touches: Completing the interior and landscaping the garden</h2><p>In March 2020, the coronavirus pandemic stuck, and the construction industry ground to a halt. Luckily, Ashoka by then had only the interior of the house to complete. Over the next five months, he worked on this alone.</p><div type="image" title="Casa Eterea 13 by Prashant Ashoka" height="2000" width="2668" msid="81645925" hostid="261"></div><p>Ashoka also landscaped the garden. Alongside the cactus, he planted olive, pomegranate, and orange trees. "I think it's very romantic, [the] idea of being able to pluck fruit from the tree and taste what grows in the garden. I wanted that experience for people staying in the house," he explained.</p><p>Since the beginning of the build, nature has treated Ashoka to many unforgettable moments. "Every year from October to November the monarch butterflies migrate to Mexico from Canada," he said. "One day I was sitting in the pool and I spotted five monarchs, then 10, and soon the sky was filled with them."</p><p>In hindsight, he says he would have done some things differently. "I would have built the house on a stilt-like structure, rather [than] use a deep rock foundation. That would have been simpler, faster, and would have been a lot less invasive," he said. "I would be tempted to build my own home again, depending on the location."</p><p>"Hopefully," he added with a laugh, "somewhere flat."</p><div type="image" title="Casa Eterea 12 by Prashant Ashoka" height="2000" width="2668" msid="81645927" hostid="261"></div>

A Singaporean photographer bought land on the side of an extinct volcano and spent 3 years building a solar-powered house on it. Take a look inside.

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div></p><h2>BI Answers: Where do insects go in the winter?</h2><p>In the summer, when the air is sticky and hot, insects are everywhere: circling your fruit bowl, marching across your picnic, buzzing in your ear, and sometimes - the worst of times - flying directly into your mouth.</p><p>But when temperatures drop, icicles form, and parkas come out of storage, the bugs seem to vanish completely from the chilliest corners of the world - until months later, like some kind of magic trick... they reappear, as if they'd been there all along. </p><p>Where did they go?</p><p>To find out, we talked to someone who has spent much of his research career pondering this very question: <a href="http://www.uwo.ca/biology/directory/faculty/sinclair.html">Brent Sinclair</a>, the director of the <a href="http://publish.uwo.ca/~bsincla7/index.html">Insect Low Temperature Biology Lab</a> at the University of Western Ontario in Canada, where he is also an associate professor.</p><p>One reason most people are mystified by the fate of insects in the winter is because there is not a simple answer. Some survive as eggs, larvae, or pupae, while others make it through the winter as fully-grown adults.</p><p>In general though, there are three distinct survival strategies that get insects - and related critters, like spiders - through the winter. One of them (the last on our list!) seems strange enough to be <keyword id="41551" type="ENTERTAINMENT" weightage="100" keywordseo="science">science</keyword> fiction.</p><h2>1. Avoid the cold</h2><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table full"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div>The first strategy is perhaps the most straightforward. Many insects survive the cold winters by simply avoiding them, employing what Sinclair dubs "the snowbird approach."</p><p>Some, like butterflies and dragonflies, migrate much like songbirds do, heading south en masse as soon as the cold sets in. (Researchers have actually <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1686212/">attached tiny radio transmitters</a> to dragonflies to track these migration patterns.)</p><p>North American monarch butterflies, the most famous migrating insects, <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3306460/">make a long and somewhat miraculous journey to central Mexico each winter</a>. (Swallowtail butterflies <a href="http://www.nrcresearchpress.com/doi/abs/10.1139/z91-427#.VOdN0bDF_YA">do no such thing</a>, sticking out the winter safely encased as a chrysalis instead.)</p><p>For other insects, avoiding sub-zero temperatures means a journey of inches, not miles. Many aquatic insects wait out the winter at the bottoms of ponds, where they can remain relatively comfortable even when the surface freezes, Sinclair explains. Others do the same in the soil, burrowing deep below the frost.</p><p>Different types of mosquitoes have different winter survival strategies, but some are able to survive cold temperatures by hiding out in sheltered places like "inside the envelope of a house or under a bridge," Sinclair says, where they lay in wait in a state called "<a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23926775">quiescence</a>." Their next meal won't come till springtime.</p><h2>2. Carry on as usual</h2><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table full"><div><div class="image"></div><p></p></div></div>While insects seem scarce when December rolls around, some - a rare and hardy few - continue doing their thing, just like those headstrong outdoorsmen who go camping in the dead of winter.</p><p>"If you were to put a little trap underneath the snow, you would find some small primitive insects," Sinclair tells us. Some crawl within warm pockets carved out by grass and leaves, while others survive on the surface.</p><p>Mites, springtails (called "snow fleas," though they are technically <a href="http://www.fcps.edu/islandcreekes/ecology/snow_flea.htm">not insects</a>), and certain spiders (also not technically insects, of course) can all appear as <a href="http://www.eje.cz/artkey/eje-201003-0001_a_review_of_fennoscandian_arthropods_living_on_and_in_snow.php#.VOZZ-rDF_YA">unassuming black dots on the snow</a>. But don't be fooled: they're very much alive.</p><h2>3. Freeze!</h2><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table full"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div>The most sci-fi winter survival strategy insects rely on is similar in spirit if not mechanics to the hibernation of many warm-blooded animals.</p><p>It's called <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2040864/">diapause</a>: a dormant, semi-frozen state some insects enter until they thaw out in the spring and crawl off as if nothing had happened. (Despite our <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forever_Young_(1992_film)">fantasies of full-body cryogenics</a>, humans definitely can't do that yet - though <a href="http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=124269686">some mosquitoes pull off something a lot like it</a>.)</p><p>The <a href="http://www.dec.ny.gov/animals/7253.html">emerald ash borer</a>, a tree-killing invasive species in North America, enters diapause in the winter, which (unfortunately for the northern regions it's infested) means it can <a href="http://www.fs.usda.gov/Internet/FSE_DOCUMENTS/stelprdb5191794.pdf">survive freezing temperatures</a>. In this state of suspended animation, "they don't do anything," Sinclair says, "They don't develop. They just sit under the bark of trees where they've been feeding all summer."</p><p>The environmentally damaging creatures are able to stay unfrozen and alive in the cold because <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21070784">a high concentration of their blood is made up of something called glycerol</a>, which acts as an antifreeze.</p><p><a href="http://www.crh.noaa.gov/arx/?n=woollybear">Woolly bear caterpillars</a>, meanwhile, actually freeze into tiny statues but still live through the winter. "Ice forms inside their bodies - you tap them and they're solid," Sinclair explains. "It's an amazing trick." They can survive, Sinclair has found in his lab, at temperatures well below anything found on Earth. A lot of body processes shut down so they aren't injured in the meantime. (Goldenrod gall flies perform <a href="http://www.int-res.com/articles/cr/5/c005p061.pdf">a similar stunt</a>.)</p><h2>The undead invasion</h2><p>Many insects actually do die in the winter, leaving nothing but eggs behind. That means they are replaced by an entirely new generation in the spring. </p><p>"You know the crickets that you hear singing in the fall? Those adults that are singing are all going to die in the winter," Sinclair explains. "They lay eggs in the soil, and those hatch in the spring."</p><p>One problem with our warming winters - yes, parts of the US are experiencing a cold snap, but <a href="http://www.usatoday.com/story/weather/2015/02/16/warm-winter/23510107/">nationally it's one of the warmest winters ever recorded</a> - is that insects that are supposed to die off don't, and those that normally can't survive in the coldest areas are moving in and setting up shop. </p><p>"If you have more and more warm winters, you can get invasive species moving further up and into cold areas," Sinclair says. And all that's stopping non-invasive species, like the mountain pine beetle, "from eating eastern North America," is blistering cold of the Rockies - something we may not be able to rely on for long.</p><p>"Elevated temperatures at high elevations across western North America have allowed mountain pine beetle populations to develop in a single year in areas where two or more years were previously required," noted <a href="http://www.fs.usda.gov/ccrc/topics/insect-disturbance">a report from the US Forest Service</a>.</p><h2>Still a bit of mystery</h2><p>Scientists can detail many of the different ways insects make it through the winter, but there's a lot we still don't understand.</p><p>The creatures that freeze or enter diapause and then spring back to life are especially mysterious. They're also some of the most intriguing insects, since while humans have <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18080461">found ways to freeze eggs and sperm</a>, we are still trying to figure out if there is a way to freeze and preserve whole tissues and <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25599048">organs</a> without damaging them.</p><p>"For over 200 years, we've known that some insects can survive freezing," says Sinclair. "But we still don't know what the magic bullet is that lets them do that."</p><p><em style="line-height: 1.5em;">This post is part of a continuing series that answers all of your questions related to science. Have your own question? Email <a href="mailto:science@businessinsider.com">science@businessinsider.com</a> with the subject line "Q&amp;A"; tweet your question to <a href="https://twitter.com/BI_Science" target="_blank">@BI_Science</a>; or <a href="https://www.facebook.com/BusinessInsiderScience" target="_blank">post to our Facebook page</a>.</em></p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/bill-nye-science-education-us-america-2014-12">Bill Nye Reveals The Huge Problem With How We Teach Science</a></h3>        <div>            <div>        <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="lmdDQ2cjrI4xXc0w-iBUF6gqhXFUg4UQ" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div>        </div>        </div>            </div>

You Searched For "butterfly migration" and got 10 results

These butterflies flew across the Atlantic Ocean, winging their way from Africa to South America!

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California has 50 times more monarch butterflies than last year — a puzzling blip in their path to extinction

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Animated map shows just how far these animals travel to migrate

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Giant Butterfly Study Unlocks The Monarch's Most Mysterious Traits

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A Singaporean photographer bought land on the side of an extinct volcano and spent 3 years building a solar-powered house on it. Take a look inside.

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