Butterflies

• Monarch butterfiles west of the Rockies go to California for the winter; those east of the Rockies head for Mexico.
• Of the Monarch butterflies that fly south each spring, few make the return trip. Most die. It's their offspring that go north.
• A Monarch butterfly can go about 620 miles without refueling.
• Butterflies shiver in the cold.
• There are butterflies that smell like chocolate.
• Butterflies are territorial and will fight for their turf.
• There are 300 species of butterflies on Madagascar; 233 of them are found nowhere else in the world.
• Butterflies have been seen 700 miles north of the Arctic Circle!
• You can credit the wind for the many varieties of butterflies. It blows them off-course, sometimes. They lose their mother colonies, join other groups, mate with them, thus creating different varieties.
• There are butterfly ranches in Papua, New Guinea where "ranch-hands" run around with butterfly nets to capture specimens for sale to collectors worldwide.
• There's no language without a word for butterfly.