This timing fits with recent tectonic reconstructions of the Central American Seaway during the early part of the Miocene Epoch (which spans 23.8 to 5.3 million years).

Butterflies first appeared somewhere in Central and western North America. At the time, North America was bisected by an expansive seaway that split the continent in two, while present-day Mexico ...

They're also the oldest bat fossils from Central America, preserved 20-million years ago when Panama and the rest of North America were separated from southern landmass by a seaway at least ...

Next the butterflies crossed the Bering Land Bridge — a land bridge that once existed between Russia and North America — and reached what is now Russia 75-60 million years ago. .

AccuWeather says that the Central American Gyre could form around mid-May, ... which made landfall in South Carolina just two weeks after Tropical Storm Arthur grazed the North Carolina coast in 2020.