The Hideout: A Monarch Butterfly Mystery

Terrestrials

The episode explores the incredible migratory journey of monarch butterflies, tracing their path from North America to the Oyamel forests of

Key takeaways

• Dr. Frederick Quirt and his wife Nora pioneered monarch tracking by gluing tiny paper messages onto butterfly wings in the 1950s.
• The Oyamel trees in Mexico create a vital microclimate that regulates temperature and humidity for clustering butterflies.

Main topics

• Monarch butterfly migration
• Scientific discovery via wing tagging

Notable quotes

A message in a butterfly wing.

Conclusion

The episode illustrates the profound interconnectedness of life throug

Transcript preview

Speaker 2 (0:01) You are listening to Speaker 4 (0:04) Terrestrial Speaker 2 (0:06) from Speaker 4 (0:09) Radiolab and WNYC. Three, two, one. Imagine your arms morph into wings. Speaker 2 (0:22) Orange-colored Speaker 4 (0:25) wings covered in scales that sparkle in the light. Your legs multiply. And so do your eyes. Speaker 4 (0:35) So you can see extra special light waves traveling all the way from the sun. Your face sprouts a long straw, which you use to slurp flower nectar. Speaker 2 (0:50) You have become the Manak Butterfly. Speaker 4 (0:56) Now is the time when I make you sing the theme song with me. You ready? Oh, yes. Terrestrials, Speaker 5 (1:02) terrestrials, we are not the worst. Speaker 4 (1:09) But Terrestrials is a show where we uncover the strangeness waiting right here on Earth. I'm your host, Sula Miller. Joined as always by my song bud, Butterfly in the Sky. Alan? I can't fly Speaker 5 (1:18) twice as Speaker 4 (1:19) high, cause butterflies Speaker 5 (1:20) have been recorded at altitudes of over 10,000 feet. Speaker 4 (1:24) And I'm also joined by producer Bud Anna. Hi, Lulu. Hello. And Anna, you are bringing us the tale today of this black and orange butterfly, the monarch. Yeah, and I wanted to tell you their story now as the leaves Speaker 6 (1:37) are starting to turn orange and the holiday of Dia de Muertos, or Day of the Dead, is just around the corner. Because in many indigenous traditions from what is today Mexico, the sudden appearance of the monarch butterfly around this time of year has long been seen as a sort of spirit. As the soul of an ancestor returning from the great beyond to Speaker 4 (2:00) say hi. Oh, that's beautiful. And Speaker 6 (2:05) the thing is, scientists too have looked to the monarch and wondered about a different kind of mysterious crossing. Because throughout the year, monarchs appear in one place and then another and then another, crossing over the land until they disappear. And for centuries, people wondered, where Speaker 4 (2:24) were they going? Well, this sounds like something we butterfly-nd out. Yes. And a wild story awaits. Speaker 6 (2:35) And it all begins when I landed in the mountains of central Mexico in a classroom full of kids. Speaker 5 (2:41) Buenos dias, compañeritos. Buenos! Speaker 5 (2:45) to meet their Speaker 6 (2:46) teacher for the day, a butterfly expert named Estela. Speaker 2 (2:49) Well, we are here in Angangueo, Michoacán, in Mexico, where everybody's welcome, like you, like terrestrials. Speaker 6 (2:57) And Estela explains that monarchs puzzled scientists in the United States and Canada because from their vantage point, every winter, the butterflies just vanished into thin air. Which, of course, could not actually be what was happening. So to figure out where these monarchs were disappearing to, a couple of scientists back in the 1950s came up with one of the funniest experiments I've ever heard of. Dr. Speaker 2 (3:25) Frederick Quirt, together with his wife Nora, started tagging monarchs. Specifically, Speaker 6 (3:30) they captured monarch butterflies and Speaker 2 (3:32) glued this little paper message onto their wings. A tiny? Telephone number, perhaps a couple of words like, if you find this right here. Like Speaker 6 (3:45) a message in a bottle, but a message in a butterfly wing? Speaker 2 (3:49) Yes, they put it in the wing of many monarch butterflies. Speaker 5 (3:54) Message in a butterfly wing, Speaker 2 (3:57) yeah! Speaker 5 (3:57) Flap, flap, flap, flap, flap! Speaker 6 (3:59) Tiny messages flying high in the air like... carrier pigeons with secret notes, except they're tiny butterflies. Year after year, butterfly after butterfly, these little notes flapped around going who knows where. And then one day, after 20 years of nothing, somebody called the number. Speaker 5 (4:24) I found this butterfly. It said to call you? Speaker 6 (4:27) It was the husband of a woman who had grown up not far from Estela. Speaker 2 (4:32) Mrs. Catalina Aguado? Who Speaker 6 (4:34) had a pretty good idea where the monarchs went and who offered to show the scientists if they wanted to come down. And Estela's mom, she could have led them there too. Because when she was younger, she'd been a shepherd. And would walk through these mountain forests all the time, grazing her sheep with their siblings. And when the weather got cold, she knew to steer clear of certain patches, where her sheep would be scared of this fluttering mass of Speaker 4 (5:02) butterflies. Whoa, there were enough butterflies to scare sheep? I've never heard of butterflies being scary. Speaker 2 (5:10) One of the most extraordinary phenomenons in the animal kingdom. Speaker 6 (5:14) And Estela got to see it for herself for the first time when she was just nine years old. Speaker 2 (5:20) It was very snowy and it was really not easy to drive to these elevations. These mountain forests are 10,000 feet in elevation. The air is thin. As we walked into the forest, we reached a spot. And I can only remember that all of a sudden, all around was extremely silent. Everybody was very quiet. No one moved. So I touched my mother and asked her, Mom, I cannot see anything. It looks strange. This is so, like, foggy, gray, dark. And Mom said, Speaker 2 (6:04) Keep quiet. Can you see the branches of this tree in front of us bending down, almost touching the ground? And suddenly, Estella realized what she was looking at. The Speaker 6 (6:20) whole forest is... Speaker 6 (6:24) Monarchs. Monarch butterflies. Coating these massive pine-like Speaker 2 (6:29) trees all around them. They are all wrapping the trees from bottom to top. The trees were looking like... How to explain this? Like smoky. There was no single branch free. No. It was all monarch butterflies. Speaker 6 (6:50) Hundreds of thousands of monarchs. Huddling against the cold, Estela almost couldn't believe it. Like a hidden oasis just miles from where she lived every day. A spot where it seemed like all the monarch butterflies in the whole world were hiding. Speaker 2 (7:06) We were all impressed. But mom, who had been born up there in those mountains, told us this has always been there. They appeared in the fall and then as the winter was over and it started to get a little more sunny, they disappeared. And this happened every year, all our lives. Why should this be important? Speaker 6 (7:31) But it was very important to the scientists, who were finally able to study the monarchs in this hiding spot that Estella's mom and neighbors had long known about. Huh. Speaker 4 (7:43) And Ana, did people have any idea why it was there? Like, why is the hiding spot there? Why would so many butterflies from all over like cram themselves into this one little hiding spot way up high in the mountains? Speaker 6 (7:57) Yeah, well, that was Monarch Mystery number two. Speaker 4 (8:00) And Speaker 6 (8:00) to get some answers, I figured Speaker 4 (8:01) I should Speaker 6 (8:02) go see this place with my own eyes. Speaker 1 (8:08) Buenos dias. Buenos dias. Speaker 6 (8:10) If I sound out of breath, it's because I am. I am hiking straight up this super steep trail in the middle of Mexico on a mountain with a guide named Valdo, who's basically running laps around me. Valdo's showing me through the forest that wowed Estela back when she was a little kid, which have now become an official monarch butterfly refuge and world heritage site. Speaker 7 (8:36) There's a bit of open sky and just like hundreds of them Speaker 6 (8:40) flying in the sun. Every step up the mountain, we get closer to the heart of the sanctuary and we see more and more orange wings. Even if I could breathe right, I'd still be breathing heavy because it's so cool. And finally, at the very top of the mountain, I see what I've come