Hobbies And Interests
Mating
In the summertime, the monarch butterfly makes its home in North America where it mates up to seven times. The monarch butterfly only lives for two to six weeks. During the mating season, the male monarch courts the female monarch in the air and then tackles her to the ground where they mate. The monarchs then migrate south to their home in Mexico. During this migration, the female monarch seeks out milkweed plants where she will lay her eggs.
Egg-laying
Female monarchs prefer to lay their eggs on the milkweed plant. They will search for miles to find this particular plant. During their journey, monarchs will land on different plants, using sensors on their feet and heads to determine if the plant is milkweed or not. Once they find a suitable plant, monarchs lay one egg at a time but can lay dozens of eggs in a single day. Eggs take from three to 15 days to hatch into larvae.
Larvae Development
Larvae, also known as caterpillars, consume their egg cases once they are hatched and begin to feed on the milkweed where they were laid. These caterpillars feed on the milkweed plant for two weeks. This stage is important since caterpillars need to store energy for the next stage of development. Eating for two weeks, the monarch stores fat and nutrients that will sustain them during their pupa stage. This diet also helps protect the monarch. Eating milkweed plants causes the monarch butterfly and its larvae to store alkaloid, which makes it taste unpleasant to predators. The unrelated viceroy butterfly has adapted itself to look like the monarch to avoid predators.
Pupa Stage
In the pupa stage, monarch caterpillars spin a silk pan on a twig or leaf and hang from their prolegs. Hanging upside down in the shape of a "J," the caterpillar molts and becomes encased in a green exoskeleton. Inside this casing, the caterpillar's hormones change and it develops into a butterfly. The pupa stage lasts two weeks. A day or so before it emerges from its cocoon, the caterpillar darkens and develops its orange and black wings. The mature butterfly then emerges from the chrysalis casing it lived in and hangs from the chrysalis for several hours as its wings dry. At the same time, fluids are pumped into the wings of the butterfly until they are full and stiff, ready to fly.