Bluetooth BluMorpho Tags Turn Phones into Real‑Time Monarch Trackers

This season Nature NB introduced Bluetooth‑enabled BluMorpho tags on monarch butterflies across New Brunswick, working together with the Saint John Naturalist Club, Point Lepreau Bird Observatory and Environment and Climate Change Canada.

Each BluMorpho tag weighs about 0.066 grams – roughly one‑tenth of a monarch’s body mass – and is powered by a miniature solar cell. Technicians affix the device to the butterfly’s thorax using a dab of eyelash glue, with a slender antenna running along the abdomen.

The tags do not need to be recaptured. They emit a passive Bluetooth signal that any phone with Bluetooth enabled can detect within a 100‑metre radius. When a phone runs the free Project Monarch app, it automatically records the butterfly’s location as a data point.

Before this technology, researchers relied on numbered wing stickers that only produced data when a person happened to spot the tag and reported it. The new system removes that element of chance, turning everyday observers into contributors.

Early readings have already confirmed known stop‑over sites, such as the journey from Point Lepreau to Grand Manan, and have revealed unexpected wind‑driven deviations, with three tagged monarchs ending up in Nova Scotia instead of heading south.

“It’s a very exciting new chapter in the monarch conservation world in the Maritimes,” said Francie Morgan, program co‑ordinator with Nature NB.

Jim Wilson, a birder and naturalist with the Point Lepreau Bird Observatory, added, “The old method was simply to put a numbered wing tag on and hope somebody would find it… This is now online, you can go on there and find out where that monarch is.”

By turning ordinary smartphones into a distributed sensor network, the BluMorpho tags give scientists instant insight into migration routes and help identify critical habitats that need protection.

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