Winter Lecture Series: Monarch Butterflies: Masters of Migration with Mike Weilbacher (Jan. 8, 2023)

Every year, monarch butterflies (Danaus plexippus)—those showy, Halloween-colored beauties—engage in one of nature’s most extraordinary feats: flying to a very few secluded mountain valleys in Mexico. After wintering, they begin a perilous journey north, sometimes taking generations to return to Pennsylvania. And in the fall, they start over again. How do they accomplish this remarkable task? Why did it even evolve? The monarch is also among the most endangered butterflies, their numbers in a steep decline in recent decades—for surprising reasons. Mike Weilbacher shares this butterfly’s unique story, weaving up-to-date science with folk legend and Aztec myth. You’ll gain a new appreciation for the master of butterflies and learn innumerable ways you can help this amazing creature.

Naturalist Mike Weilbacher is executive director of the Schuylkill Center for Environmental Education in Philadelphia’s Roxborough section. An award-winning environmental educator for 40 years, Weilbacher writes a weekly column for the Roxborough Review and is well known to public radio listeners as “Mike the All-Natural Science Guy” on the live children’s radio show “Kid’s Corner” on WXPN.

Mike will be joining us in-person for this program.

Program Fee: $18 (Members, enter your code at checkout to receive your 20% discount.)

The 2023 Winter Lecture Series is brought to you, in part, thanks to the generous support of the Bucks County Foundation.