Butterflies arrive in Eastern Canada — in record-breaking numbers

The butterflies have invaded Canada.

Record numbers of red admiral butterflies have migrated to central and eastern Canada from the Carolinas, Texas and Florida — and no one knows why.

"There's never been anything like this. This is like a tidal wave of butterflies making their way north," Jeremy Kerr, a biologist at the University of Ottawa, told The Toronto Star.

An estimated 300 million butterflies — 85 percent of them red admirals, but painted ladies are also swarming the nation — have made this season's migration "one for the history books," with at least 10 times more of the colourful insects arriving in Canada than usual.

The warm winter and spring across parts of North America may have contributed to the mass migration which began a month earlier than usual. With no cold zones to encounter during their migration, the butterflies "just kept going."

Kerr claims the butterflies won't have an immediate effect on their environment. Experts cannot yet predict what the increase in numbers means.

"We don't know yet which species are going to be winners and which are going to be losers in this time of rapid environmental change," Kerr told CBC News.

"I don't think we need to be worried, it is just fascinating, one of the consequences of a potential global warming," butterfly distribution expert Max Larrivee told CTV's Canada AM.

"Right now we should just enjoy the number of butterflies we're seeing," said Antonia Guidotti, entomology technician in the Department of Natural History at the Royal Ontario Museum. "It's a harbinger of spring."