The monarch butterfly is also called the "milkweed butterfly" so called for the larva plant of this species.
Milkweed is the primary food for the larva. Adult female monarchs lay their eggs on the underside of milkweed leaves.
These eggs usually hatch in three to twelve days. The larvae feed on the plant leaves for about two weeks and develop into caterpillars.

Eastern populations winter in Florida, along the coast of Texas, and in Mexico, and return north in spring.
Monarch butterflies follow the same migration patterns every year. It is not unusual to see huge numbers of butterflies
gathered together during migration

Ever since I did the sequence of the Black Swallowtail two years ago, I've wanted to do the same with a Monarch.
I bought some milkweed seed this spring and sowed it in an old flower bed to lure them in but for some reason it never
took root and I was left with about 8-10 scrawny plants that never got any taller than a foot. Not having found
any larva in the wild, I pretty much gave up for this year. Now I hardly ever see Monarchs in my yard save
for migration in the fall, but lo and behold, as I was mowing the lawn a couple weeks ago,
there on top of one of those scrawny milkweed plants was a lone Monarch caterpillar.
I stopped the tractor and quickly got my things together so I could give this little fellow a home for a few weeks.
After I nursed it into the chamber, I cut off some of those succulent, tender, young, scrawny milkweed branches and served
it the best dinner it likely ever had. Well it sure made a pig of itself for two days. Then I noticed it got pretty quiet
and didn't seem interested in the rest of the milkweed. That's when I thought it was probably a good time to get the camera ready.

The series of photos below and in the SLIDE SHOW(click here) , were taken over the following 13 days.
Many times, as in the case of the Black Swallowtail, folks would ask how long between events in the cycle.
I figured the best thing to do was to show the date and time below each photo. That should give an idea
of the time frame. Some were hours, some were days and near the end it was mere minutes or seconds.

BEST VIEWED WITH SLIDE SHOW

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