A severe late spring storm in central Mexico in March 2016 that struck the Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve was unique because it was accompanied by high-velocity winds that eliminated the normal thermal protection provided by the Oyamel fir forest. Temperatures throughout the forest merged with the colder open-area ambient temperatures. The storm was in effect a rain and snow storm sandwiched within a powerful and sustained wind storm, followed by lethal freezing that killed 31–38% of the butterflies in the Sierra Chincua and Cerro Pelón overwintering colonies.

In 1991, Robert S. Desowitz asked, “Did the primitive malaria begin as a parasite of some prehistoric reptile that later was picked up by a mosquito, or was it first a parasite of the mosquito that later became established in the reptile?” This question has been debated for years and is addressed in the present work in light of the fossil record of malarial organisms (Haemosporidia).

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