Forty years ago Mexico’s monarch butterfly winter mirabilia were known only to those who lived among them. Campesinos who celebrate their arrival in late autumn, wondered where the billions of magical beings went every spring when the dense clusters separated into individual butterflies, flew off high mountain trees, and disappeared. Forty years ago, people in the U.S. and Canada wondered what happened to the orange and black skydancers when they lifted into the air and left every autumn. Forty-one years ago both mysteries connected and in August 1976 the zoologist behind this effort published an answer, but withheld specific location details. As we know now, summer’s last monarchs fly south, leaving their northern homes, funneling into a stream to fly across the border and down the Sierra Madre mountains to over-wintering sites in Mexico.*
It’s a clever mystery story. Answers to these questions are widely known but the people holding the information aren’t talking to each other. No one is asking the right people the right questions. The answer is hiding in plain sight if you know where to look. There’s no secret to discover, just information to gather and put together. Ultimately, it was the monarchs themselves, sent to zoologist Dr. Fred Urquhart, who connected both ends of the mystery. And even he maintained the monarch’s secrets.