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“It’s going to be a very interesting year for butterflies because of the painted lady.”

John Acorn, formally on television as the Nature Nut and currently with the department of renewable resources with the University of Alberta, said Edmonton can expect an influx of pink lady butterflies this summer — a migration that hasn’t happened in Alberta since 2005.

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Acorn said the painted lady is the most common migratory butterfly, but they generally only come up to Alberta every 10 to 15 years.

He said the migration depends on the weather conditions in the southern United States and Mexico, where the butterflies live during the winter months.

“If conditions are good during the winter, the painted lady numbers build up and once they reach a certain population density, the butterflies become migratory and they stream northward,” he said.

Felix Sperling, also a professor at the U of A and curator of the Strickland Museum of Entomology at the university, added the species migrates to Alberta in response to wet years further south impacted by El Nino.