At this moment, hundreds of thousands of Painted Lady butterflies are fluttering along one of the most astonishing migrations in the insect world: an epic trip of roughly 4,500 miles from the sub-Saharan region to the Arctic Circle, at a speed of up to 30 miles per hour. Over the course of a year, the butterflies will fly about twice that — more than 9,000 miles in all.
The Painted Ladies are one of the most widely distributed butterflies in the world, appearing on every continent except Antarctica and sometimes crossing the seas and oceans between them. Just last year, researchers discovered that a flock of Painted Ladies rode the wind over the Atlantic Ocean from West Africa to the northern coast of South America — the first documented insect journey across an ocean.
The Painted Lady’s migration, chronicled in the photographer Lucas Foglia’s new book, “Constant Bloom,” is a powerful reminder of our interconnections with nature and our shared stake in an ever-changing world.
The butterflies’ resilience shows us that some species are capable of adapting to dramatic changes in climate, food availability and urban development. But they also require humans’ attention to continue thriving. If we don’t protect their breeding grounds and nectar sources, these butterflies could meet the same fate as many others. While there is no data showing a change in the population of Painted Ladies, a recent study revealed that American butterfly populations decreased 22 percent between 2000 and 2020, in part because of habitat loss, climate change and farmers’ use of insecticides.
Painted Ladies’ most skillful form of adaptation is their solution to their need for flowers for nectar and a place to lay their eggs. As humans transform the landscapes along their migration route, the insects are forced to lay eggs on plants near roads and upturned soil from building developments. When they encounter droughts, the butterflies benefit from not being picky — they can feast on a wide range of blooming plants, which these days are often in cultivated spaces such as parks, farms and gardens. Along the way, they’re often helping humans by pollinating fruit trees, such as apples, cherries and citrus, moving pollen from one blossom to another.
As they cross the Mediterranean, which extends about 500 miles north-south, favorable winds can help the butterflies fly faster or higher. One entire migratory cycle from central Africa to the Arctic Circle and back again requires up to 10 generations — the butterflies that leave Africa are not the same ones that return the next spring. Think of it as a butterfly relay race.
In the spring they mate in the Mediterranean region and that generation migrates to northern Europe in early summer.
When they head south again and arrive at the tropical African savanna — verdant, lush and full of flowers — their orange and black wings are a bit paler, more shredded at the outer edges. But they regain their strength after sipping on nectar. A painted lady butterfly can lay up to 500 eggs in her lifetime, so by the next spring, their great-great-great-grand-insects will join the journey north, back into Scandinavia.
Until recently, scientists didn’t know exactly where the Painted Ladies spent the winter in Africa. In 2023, Gerard Talavera, a scientist at the Institut Botànic de Barcelona, and his collaborators from six countries, published a paper detailing their detective work across the butterflies’ breeding region, from Senegal on Africa’s west coast to Kenya in the east. They found that from September to November, the butterflies were making their home in the semiarid savannas before moving south to more humid savannas and highlands from December to February. Understanding how these ranges may shift with climate change is critical to butterfly conservation efforts.
Dr. Talavera’s work, which is ongoing, is a reminder that when scientists work together across borders to study biodiversity and protect critical habitats, the world stands a better chance of preserving the delicate ecological balance that these butterflies — and the planet — rely on.
The Painted Ladies’ lesson is this: Even if our wings become frayed and raggedy after a long and difficult journey, it’s not too late to find new ways to persist. It’s not too late to come together to address the most urgent issues of our time.
Graphic by Taylor Maggiacomo.
Aimee Nezhukumatathil is a poet and an essayist and the author of “Bite by Bite: Nourishments and Jamborees,” and “World of Wonders: In Praise of Fireflies, Whale Sharks, and Other Astonishments.”
Lucas Foglia was a Guggenheim fellow in photography. He spent three years following the longest butterfly migration across international borders. His new book is “Constant Bloom.”
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