Monarch butterflies are now an endangered species

Member of Group 

Hilda Putri Wijayati  (21.03.52.0002)

Ravinda 

Sources :

 https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/article/monarch-butterflies-are-now-an-endangered-species?rid=&cmpid=org=ngp::mc=crm-email::src=ngp::cmp=editorial::add=Animals_20220721

Monarch Butterfly 

The monarch butterfly is a type of butterfly that belongs to the family Danaidae. This butterfly feeds on the annual herbaceous plant, Asclepias L. which is the best plant for some animals. Chemical compounds from these plants will accumulate until the butterfly reaches the adult phase and becomes its self-defense.

Asclepias L.

Monarch butterfly from southern Canada and the United States, they travel to winter sites in central Mexico.

With their bright orange hues and lengthy migration, monarch butterflies (Danaus plexippus) are one of the world's most iconic insects. But their population has steadily dropped in recent decades as they face habitat loss and other threats.

The Endangered migratory monarch butterfly is a subspecies of the monarch butterfly (Danaus plexippus). 

The native population, known for its migrations from Mexico and California in the winter to summer breeding grounds throughout the United States and Canada, has shrunk by between 22% and 72% over the past decade. Legal and illegal logging and deforestation to make space for agriculture and urban development has already destroyed substantial areas of the butterflies’ winter shelter in Mexico and California, while pesticides and herbicides used in intensive agriculture across the range kill butterflies and milkweed, the host plant that the larvae of the monarch butterfly feed on.

- Cause 

Climate change has significantly impacted the migratory monarch butterfly and is a fast-growing threat; drought limits the growth of milkweed and increases the frequency of catastrophic wildfires, temperature extremes trigger earlier migrations before milkweed is available, while severe weather has killed millions of butterflies.

- Effect

In 1997, it is estimated that nearly a billion Monarch butterflies live into the forest, but in the 2000s the population was only 33 million, the lowest number ever counted. Then now, nearly 84 percent of the previous population almost endangered.

And another effect is killed Milkweed, the host plant that the monarch butterfly larvae eats.