|
Back to Science Guide Menu
Monarchs have four stages in their life cycle – egg, larva, pupa, and adult. This is called complete metamorphosis.
Egg
- The Monarch’s egg looks like a tiny creamy-colored ball.
- Its diameter is about the size of the tip of your sharpened pencil.
- You can find a monarch egg on the underside of a milkweed plant.
Larva
- The Monarch caterpillar is called the larva.
- The tiny larva bites a hole in the egg and crawls out.
- The monarch caterpillar’s first meal is its own eggshell
- Monarch caterpillars eat milkweed, which contains a white milky
poisonous fluid. This fluid does not harm the monarchs, but it makes them taste bad. Many potential predators will not eat Monarchs because they know they will make them sick.
- A Monarch caterpillar is an invertebrate. It has no backbone! However, its skin is its exoskeleton.
- The caterpillar’s skin does not grow larger as the caterpillar grows. Therefore, it must molt (shed its skin) four times before it is fully grown
- A Monarch caterpillar has three pairs of pointed legs at the front of its body. They are attached to the thorax. The caterpillar uses them for touching and feeling.
- The larva has five pairs of back prolegs. It uses these suction cup-like legs to hang on to things and to move.
- The larva has six simple eyes, and can only see dark and light.
- The larva has two pairs of filaments - longer front filaments and shorter back filaments.
Pupa
- The Monarch pupa is a beautiful yellowish-green color with gold specks around the top edges. It is shaped like an acorn without the cap.
- Inside the pupa, the caterpillar cells liquefy and rearrange to form the butterfly. This can take from five to fifteen days, depending on the temperature.
Adult
- A Monarch butterfly is distinguishable by its orange wings and black veins. It has a black body and has white dots on its head and around the edges of its wings.
- A male monarch has a black spot on one vein on its two hind wings. This spot is a scent gland that gives off a scent to attract females during mating
season.
- A monarch butterfly’s eyes are made up of thousands of tiny lenses that enable it to see.
- A Monarch can lay as many as 400 eggs, but it usually lays just one egg on each individual milkweed leaf.
- Monarchs west of the Rocky Mountains migrate toward the Pacific. They
over-winter in over 100 nesting sights, all in California
except one that is in northern Mexico.
- Monarchs east of the Rocky Mountains migrate south to the oyamel fir forests in the Transverse Neovolcanic Belt in Mexico.
- During the winter months, monarchs are inactive and survive mostly on water from rain and
dew.
- As days lengthen in the spring, monarchs mate and
begin their journey north.
An
ancient Mexican myth says the monarchs are the returning souls of the dead.
|
