Chickadee Photo Art

Monarch Butterfly – life stages

// August 14th, 2010 // Dragonflies-Butterflies-Moths, Insects, Recent Posts, Urban Nature

Considered one of the most beautiful butterflies – thus the name “Monarch”.  Monarchs will lay eggs on milkweed plants.  I planted milkweed to attract them and it worked.  The above photo from my garden – a Monarch on a coneflower.  The caterpillars grow and eat the milkweed leaves and then crawl up to a suitable place where they hang in the chrysalis stage.  Right now there are about 15 caterpillars happily chewing on the milkweed plant.  The are four generations each summer and only the fourth lives to make the migration all the way south to a forest in Mexico.  Try “googling” the Monarch butterfly to read about this most fascinating insect, their life cycle and amazing annual migration.

Below:  Monarch caterpillar feeding on a milkweed plant. They grow extremely fast in this stage.

Below:  Monarch chrysalis.  They are a very beautiful green colour with some gold trim.  If you look closely on the right hand side you can see the faint outline of the Monarch’s wing inside the chrysalis.  I will post photos of the developing chrysalis as it develops at a later date and hopefully of the butterfly emerging as well.

Enjoy!

~Sharon