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The Annual Cycle
of the Monarch Butterfly

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The Annual Cycle of the Monarch Butterfly

The monarch butterfly's annual fall migration to Mexico is one of nature's most incredible survival stories. The monarchs spend the winter in Mexico, then migrate north in the spring. However, it takes two generations of monarchs to complete the northward migration. Another two or three generations live during the breeding season. So, when the fall migration begins again, the monarchs are the great-great grandchildren of those that flew to Mexico the previous year. Like magic, the butterflies migrate a region of Mexico where none has been before.

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