When the warm rains of spring finally come pelting down, the eggs thaw and hatch. Some water-dwelling insects burrow into lake and river bottoms for the winter, and some beetles hibernate in tree bark. Certain honeybees cram together into a ball, using their wing muscles to generate heat and keep the temperature above freezing in their hive. Other insects harden themselves to the cold by changing their body chemistry. For example, certain caterpillars in the far north produce a substance similar to car antifreeze, and can survive even when the temperature drops below -100 F. Like birds, some insects migrate in the fall, escaping the cold for warmer places.
Locusts are migrators.
So are some species of butterflies, moths, dragonflies, ants, termites, bees, wasps, and ladybugs. For many years scientists knew that the butterflies took off for the south in cool weather, but no one knew where they spent the winter. An entomologist named Fred Urquhart spent more than 40 years trying to solve the mystery of migrating monarchs. Urquhart devised a way to tag individual butterflies by attaching lightweight adhesive strips to their wings. He convinced hundreds of people to help him look for the butterflies on their flights.