Algeciras, 6 mar (EFE).-La Fundación Migres confirmed the presence of the monarch butterfly (Danaus plexippus) in an area of 900 square kilometres near the Strait of Gibraltar.
As reported by Migres in a note, this is one of the conclusions of the scientific studies published in the journal of ecology of the Strait of Gibraltar, edited by the Foundation.
This research, carried out by Juan Fernández Haeger, Jordanian Diego and Mateo León, professors from the University of Cordoba, reveals the presence of the monarch butterfly associated with nutritional plants Asclepiadaceae, which contain compounds toxic to livestock and other many herbivores.
Caterpillars consume avidly these plants, incorporating the toxic to their own tissues, which serves as a defense against predators. In turn, these toxic will be beamed to the butterflies that will emerge from their chrysalids.
The monarch butterfly (Danaus plexippus) is an insect very striking by its size and eye-catching colors and especially migrations performed every year from United States to Mexico, where he spent the winter, returning the following spring to the North.
Specimens of this species of Butterfly in coastal areas of the South of the Iberian peninsula have been sighted for years.
These sporadic sightings have been interpreted as exemplary vagrants that have been swept away by the wind and which have been unable to reach the peninsula since North America.
Occasionally, these butterflies have come to form ephemeral colonies in places where there are species of plants needing to complete its life cycle, disappearing shortly thereafter.
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