In some places you can find mourning cloak butterflies throughout the year, but after a long winter, the first sighting of one can be the earliest sign of spring.“You don’t usually have a butterfly that can live for almost an entire year as an adult,” says Blobaum.

But a high-altitude Bolivian cloud forest has staked its claim as a global biodiversity hotspot as biologists announced today that they discovered an amazing 20 species new to science, including a poisonous viper, a super tiny frog, and four species each of orchids and butterflies.

Photo © Chris Helzer / TNC I was thrilled to photograph two different monarch butterflies inside the plot, the more so because of their current population declines.