From Mexico With Love: Butterflies Pay Rare Visit to Edmonton Maurice Tougas - Metro Edmonton
go to original June 13, 2012

Monarch butterflies, like this one photographed at the Devonian Gardens on June 8, are making a rare northern Alberta migratory appearance. (Metro/Shelley Ryan-Hovind)

Bug watchers are buzzing over an unusually large influx of rarely seen monarch butterflies in the Edmonton area.

And even more impressive is a sighting of a giant, mint green luna moth in Fort McMurray.

Matthias Buck, assistant curator of invertebrate zoology at the Royal Alberta Museum, said the first monarch sighting report came in June 7, and have since been “pouring in” from around the area. Edmonton’s entomologist (insect experts) community is particularly excited, as monarchs — one of the world’s most iconic butterflies — are seen very rarely in Edmonton.

Monarchs migrate by the millions to winter in Mexico, returning in the spring to the southern U.S.  Their offspring migrate further north to Canada, getting as far as southern Alberta. This far north, however, is rare.

Buck believes the monarch’s had a “good reproductive success” in the U.S., and were carried into the Edmonton area on strong southerly winds. Although monarchs can be mistaken for a similar looking viceroy, reports of monarchs have been confirmed by entomologists. Sightings have been reported all around the Edmonton area.

Even more impressive is a sighting of a “the most spectacular moth in North America” — a huge, mint green luna moth, spotted in Fort McMurray. The luna, whose wingspan can spread to 11.5 cm — have never been confirmed far north, or ever in Alberta. It is probably the western-most sighting for a luna ever recorded, Buck said.

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