Animal Directory Featured species in the planned Butterfly Garden habitat
Monarch Butterfly
Danaus plexippus
EN
Fun facts
- Performs the longest insect migration on record — eastern North American monarchs travel up to 4,800 km from Canada to a few mountain groves in central Mexico.
- The journey south takes four to five generations going north, but a single "super generation" lives up to nine months to complete the return.
- Caterpillars eat only milkweed, sequestering its cardenolide toxins that make the adult butterfly bitter and emetic to predators.
- Navigates by a time-compensated sun compass that combines the position of the sun with a circadian clock housed in its antennae.
- IUCN listed the migratory population (Danaus plexippus plexippus) as Endangered in 2022; the wider species is Vulnerable as of the 2023 reassessment.
From the master plan
The Monarch Butterfly opens the Butterfly Garden pollinator story. Its migration is one of the most cited examples in conservation biology, and the zone’s flagged “Protect Pollinators” pillar leans on the monarch as the species guests are most likely to already know and love.
IUCN status sourced from the migratory monarch assessment (Walker et al., 2022) — the migratory population was listed as Endangered in July 2022.
Find them in
Zone 13
Butterfly Garden
A delicate, colorful sanctuary for pollinators, flowers, and gentle discovery
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