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Butterfly Makes Astonishing 2,600-Mile Journey Across The Atlantic Ocean

July 26, 2024

In a remarkable discovery, scientists have documented an astounding feat by the Vanessa cardui butterflies, also known as painted ladies.

These delicate creatures were found to have completed a transatlantic journey spanning at least 4,200 km (2,609 miles) from West Africa to South America (French Guiana) in just 5 to 8 days.

Painted Lady Butterfly / By Ralph from Pixabay

What's even more astonishing is the inference that their journey likely began in Western Europe, potentially making their total flight distance a staggering 7,000 km (4,350 miles) or more.

The results were published this week in the journal Nature Communications.

This incredible migration was uncovered using a combination of cutting-edge techniques, including wind trajectory modeling, genomics, pollen metabarcoding, ecological niche modeling, and multi-isotope geolocation.

These methods revealed that the butterflies’ journey was energetically feasible only with the assistance of winds, making it one of the longest documented flights for individual insects and potentially the first verified transatlantic crossing.

"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," said Eric Toro-Delgado, one of the article's co-authors.

This finding indicates that natural aerial corridors connecting continents may exist, potentially facilitating the dispersal of species on a much larger scale than previously imagined.

"I think this study does a good job of demonstrating how much we tend to underestimate the dispersal abilities of insects. Furthermore, it’s entirely possible that we are also underestimating the frequency of these types of dispersal events and their impact on ecosystems," added Megan Reich, a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Ottawa who also coauthored the study.