Discovering Monarchs in the Sunshine State

Florida may not be the first state that comes to mind when talking about monarch butterflies. Maybe that’s because much of the conversation about monarchs focuses on their migration and the condition of the overwintering sites in Mexico and California, and so it kind of bypasses the Sunshine State. However, there are reports that monarchs can be seen in Florida all year, and today, we are going to give them their time in the spotlight. We are going to take a journey with monarchs that travel through Florida and explore new exciting technologies to track their migration.Who better to tell this story than monarch expert and Bug Banter regular, Ray Moranz. Ray is a Xerces Pollinator Conservation Specialist and NRCS Partner Biologist based in Oklahoma, where he works to conserve pollinators on rangelands in the central U.S. However, he has been studying monarchs for even longer and is probably seldom happier than when he is pursuing an orange-and-black butterfly across the Florida landscape.--Cover photo: Dean Jue (c)Thank you for listening! For more information go to xerces.org/bugbanter.