If I remember correctly, in some of his papers and in his book "Anatomy of a
Controvery", Adrian Wenner  acknowledges initially supporting the concept of a honey
bee "language" hypothesis in the early 1960's. Then a little later evidence began
accumulating that brought this hypothesis into question.

Similarly, as a monarch butterfly specialist, early on I was caught up in the romantic idea
that monarchs displayed miraculous pinpoint navigational capabilities. But then there was
Adrian Wenner who stated all along that it appeared to him the butterflies were flying in
various directions in the fall and essentially contracting their range rather than purposely
flying to some specific goal (i.e. overwintering sites in California and Mexico) Alot of us
monarch butterfly researchers didn't like to think the butterflies were not as proficient
navigators as some migratory birds and thought Adrian was off the mark.

Now, years later, evidence is accumulating that in the fall monarchs are indeed flying in a
wide range of westerly, southerly and easterly directions and while a large portion of
them are ending up at overwintering sites in Mexico and California, another substantial
portion ends up widely dispersed as free flying individuals unassociated with any
overwintering site from the Bahamas and West Indies westward to the Pacific coast.

In hindsight, I am glad that there was someone like Adrian around to bring us out of the
clouds and down to the reality of what insects really do, rather than what we wish them to
do. He helped motivate us to do the necessary definitive experiments.

Paul Cherubini, Placerville, California