© Wikipedia/AguntherIn recent years, scientists have noticed a disturbing drop in the number of monarchs wintering in Mexico.
Every November, around the same time that Mexico remembers lost loved ones during their Day of the Dead celebration, millions of monarch butterflies descend on Mexico's forests in their annual migration from North America. That's why, in Mexican tradition, monarchs are said to house the
souls of the dead returning to earth, PBS reports.
But these days, fewer souls seem to be making the journey.
In recent years, scientists have noticed a disturbing drop in the number of monarchs wintering in Mexico, a trend that could mean that monarchs' remarkable trek may be coming to an end.
Historically, the striking orange butterflies, which are native to the U.S. and Canada, embark on an amazing and somewhat mysterious migration, flying up to 2,800 miles to the forests of central Mexico to hibernate in a 30-by-60 square-foot area that they
have never been to before, according to the
Washington Post. In the Oyamel fir forests, millions of the stunning butterflies cover the trees in colonies that once spanned nearly 52 acres.
Lincoln Brower, a professor of biology at Sweet Briar College, told the
Washington Post that last year, the monarch colonies spanned less than 3 acres, a record low.
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