03-20-2023, 12:16 PM
[Seen on Kanopy.]
A biologist living in New York and working on pigment evolution in monarch butterflies is haunted by tragic events that occurred in his childhood while growing up in the monarch butterfly forests of Michoacán.
Interesting, but not overwhelming. You learn some things about monarchs, presumably true. For instance, when monarchs migrate southward over the Great Lakes, they will suddenly veer sideward for a distance before resuming their southward advance. This is because there used to be a mountain there, and the monarchs still remember it in their genes.
Also, it's nice to see the children in Michoacán celebrating the monarchs. The girls will dress up in monarch costumes and dance about. The boys dress up as green caterpillars or yellow chrysalises and dance. Other boys put on animal masks.
But the highlight is the protagonist catching monarchs. He needs them for his research. Unlike most people who use a butterfly net, he relies on his axe. It's hard to believe you can achieve the deft touch required to bring down a monarch butterfly with an axe unharmed, but he does it time and again.
He also gets a big monarch butterfly tattoo and has the tattoo artist use monarch butterfly dyes, but I'm not certain dyes are involved, and the monarch's coloration is instead rendered by scale patterns. So this bit of the story is perhaps untrustworthy.
A biologist living in New York and working on pigment evolution in monarch butterflies is haunted by tragic events that occurred in his childhood while growing up in the monarch butterfly forests of Michoacán.
Interesting, but not overwhelming. You learn some things about monarchs, presumably true. For instance, when monarchs migrate southward over the Great Lakes, they will suddenly veer sideward for a distance before resuming their southward advance. This is because there used to be a mountain there, and the monarchs still remember it in their genes.
Also, it's nice to see the children in Michoacán celebrating the monarchs. The girls will dress up in monarch costumes and dance about. The boys dress up as green caterpillars or yellow chrysalises and dance. Other boys put on animal masks.
But the highlight is the protagonist catching monarchs. He needs them for his research. Unlike most people who use a butterfly net, he relies on his axe. It's hard to believe you can achieve the deft touch required to bring down a monarch butterfly with an axe unharmed, but he does it time and again.
He also gets a big monarch butterfly tattoo and has the tattoo artist use monarch butterfly dyes, but I'm not certain dyes are involved, and the monarch's coloration is instead rendered by scale patterns. So this bit of the story is perhaps untrustworthy.