Well-equipped travelers: Monarch butterflies and their sun compass machinery
Steven Reppert, MD, the Higgins Family Professor of Neuroscience and chair and professor of neurobiology, is recognized as a pioneer in the effort to understand the monarch butterfly’s spectacular annual mass migration from eastern North America to central Mexico. Now the Jan. 27 edition of the journal Neuron features another interesting paper elucidating additional clues into the neurological structures and sensory signals at play in animal migration.
Dr. Reppert and postdoctoral fellow Stanley Heinze, PhD, describe the new work in a compelling video abstract of their paper, “Sun compass integration of skylight cues in migratory monarch butterflies.” Read the Neuron paper by Heinze and Reppert and view the video here.
Click here for more information about prior work on the monarch migration from the Reppert lab—including images, news stories and links to previously published papers.
