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MONTHLY NEWS January 1998 Kids Capture Butterfly that Traveled 1,300 Kilometers |
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Third graders in Okinawa Prefecture caught a butterfly that had been marked and released in Nagano Prefecture, some 1,300 kilometers (800 miles) away. It was the first time that a marked butterfly had been recaptured after traveling such a long distance.
The butterfly is a type called Asagi-madara that makes its home in moderate climates throughout Asia, including Japan. "The butterfly flew into the hallway at school," recalled Tatsuya Yonaha, the pupil who caught the insect along with two of his classmates. "When I caught it, I noticed that its wings were marked with numbers. I'd never seen such markings before." The school's science teacher brought the insect to the University of the Ryukyus, which administers the elementary school. It was discovered that the markings had been made by a butterfly research group in Nagano in late August. The butterfly had thus covered the 1,284 kilometers between Okinawa and Nagano in two months. 
The Asagi-madara migrates south during the winter and returns in the spring to its summer home. Many groups throughout the country are now studying the migration routes of this species; they are marking the date and place it was captured, along with the name of the research group, before releasing it again.
The groups hope that the marked butterflies that are recaptured would help reveal their migratory patterns, something about which scientists still know very little.
Photo: The butterfly that the kids captured was marked "UTU285." (Hisashi Fujii) 
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