黑白拱威!!

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: March 25, 2007
TAIPEI, Taiwan, March 24 (AP) — Taiwan will cordon off part of a highway to create a safe passage for a huge seasonal migration of milkweed butterflies in the coming days, a highways official said Saturday.

The butterflies, which are indigenous to Taiwan and have distinct white dots on purple and brown wings, migrate in late March from the south to the north, where they lay eggs and die.

The young butterflies then fly south in November to a warm mountain valley near Kaohsiung to escape the winter cold in the north.

Conservationists say Taiwan has about two million milkweed butterflies.

To protect the migrating butterflies, a 600-yard stretch of highway in Yunlin County in southern Taiwan will be sealed off as the migration peaks, said Lee Tai-ming, who is in charge of the National Freeway Bureau.

Nets will be set up to make the butterflies fly higher and avoid passing cars, Mr. Lee said.

He said ultraviolet lights will be installed to guide the butterflies across a highway overpass.

Taiwan began the laborious task of tracking the butterflies’ 180-mile migration paths in recent years.

Taiwan originally had more types of milkweed butterflies, but the largest varieties became extinct decades ago when they were routinely caught and made into specimens for sale, the newspaper said.

附上紐約時報的報導:)