The Life of a Monarch, Part 1

Throughout my homeschooling experience, I've learned a great deal of things. My mother has a PhD in Microbiology, and is always eager to teach us about things in Creation. One thing I've been able to witness is the metamorphosis of a Monarch butterfly.Metamorphosis is the process where the caterpillar turns into the butterfly; an amazing change. In the past, we've grown milkweed plants (the only plant Monarch caterpillars eat, and the one adult Monarchs lay eggs on). We watch for the butterflies to come, then if we see one, we run out and check to see if there are any eggs.


Being it Monarch season here, we saw some Monarchs outside near the milkweed. We checked and sure enough, there are lots of little tiny white dots on the leaves. Since I love taking pictures of things like this, I decided I'd document the life stages of a Monarch (mostly for fun, though my Mom appreciates my pictures for her class). :) I will try to post pictures and a little bit about the pictures so you can understand this amazing process God has made. All of the pictures I post are taken by me unless I say otherwise.

The Monarch egg is very tiny. The egg is laid on the underside of the leaf, so it is kept safe from rain and sun.

After a few days, the caterpillar will hatch from it's egg and eat the shell. It's still really tiny.

In that picture, you can see the egg shell the caterpillar just hatched from, and then there is the caterpillar. The other thing there is another egg that hasn't hatched yet. Once the caterpillar hatches and eats its shell, he or she will find a nice leaf to start eating, and from then on, it's all eating till they form a chrysalis.

I'll keep you posted as the caterpillar gets bigger! :)

AO

{continue to part two}