Is it a bird ? Is it a carpenter’s plane ? Nope – it ’s a 112 - kilometre ( 70 - mile ) swarm of butterflies glide over Colorado .
That ’s what puzzled weather officials find when a mysterious multicolored mass aim towards Denver start up on weather radiolocation version in Boulder , Colorado , last Tuesday , October 3 .
The National Weather Service ( NWS ) of Boulder and Denver exact toTwitterto see if any of their followers could help knead out what the strange shape were . It ’s quite common for migrating birds to be piece up on weather radar , so initially , weather officials assumed that they were to blame .
“ We detect migrate boo all the time but they were fly northward to south , ” NWS meteorologist Paul Schlatter toldCBS News . This would be an unusual journey for fowl to be making around this time of year .
A turn of Twitter followers solved the riddle withanswerslike “ Could it be butterfly stroke ? Butterflies EVERYWHERE in # Denver ! ”
The NWS Boulder latertweeted : “ We think migrating butterflies are the cause of yesterday ’s radar signature . Thanks for all the reports and sightings ! ”
Many local people had see clouds of butterflies floating over the area . Sarah Garrett , a lepidopterist at the Butterfly Pavilion in Westminster , Colorado , toldABC Newsthat people as far as the Dakotas had witnessed the butterfly .
The butterfly in question werePainted Lady butterflies , often mistaken for Monarch butterfly stroke . The insects were traveling with the wind , on their way to northern Mexico and the US sou'-west , where they spend the cold winter months . Miraculously , the tiny creatures can float 100 of miles a day , just by hitching a ride on the farting .
The Painted Lady ( Vanessa cardui ) can have a wingspan of just over 7 centimeter ( 2.8 inches ) and has orangey - brown extension with black marking . The species can be found all over the world , on every continent except Antarctica .
The raiment colors cull up by the weather radar sadly are n’t actually representative of the butterfly ’ grading . alternatively , they typify the shape of the insects and the direction in which they were traveling . Apparently , it ’s quite rarified for insect to show up on weather radars , and official believe this is the first time that butterfly have been observe by the equipment in Denver .
" We have n’t seen this case of signature of butterflies before , " said Schlatter . " We ’re activated about it . "
