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How to Find a Monarch Catepillar

The butterfly life cycle is one of the simplest to follow, and most interesting to watch. The whole life cycle takes place in a few weeks, but for many monarch butterflies, their short lives involve a migration of thousands of miles. Though much is still unknown about monarch butterflies, like how they know where to fly when they migrate, studying monarchs can illustrate many scientific concepts, from life cycles and migration to the food chain and camouflage. Finding monarch caterpillars can be the first step in a fascinating journey of observation for students of any age.

Instructions

Finding Monarchs in Nature
- 1
  Make sure monarchs are found in your area. Monarchs can be found nearly anywhere in the U.S., but are most common in the Eastern half of the U.S. and on the southern West Coast. Look for the adults, which have distinctive orange and black wings. Monarchs can sometimes be confused with other butterflies, such as viceroys.
- 2
  Look for monarch habitat. Monarchs must lay their eggs on the undersides of milkweed leaves to provide food for the caterpillar after it has hatched from its egg. Use a plant identification book or reliable online guide to learn to identify milkweed. Monarch eggs are very small and white. They are usually spaced over many leaves.
- 3
  Learn to identify the damage monarch caterpillars do to the milkweed plants. Caterpillars eat holes or lines in the leaves. Once you find this damage, it's usually easy to find the caterpillars.
- 4
  Learn to identify monarch caterpillars. They start out very small, just a fraction of an inch. By the time they hatch, though, they have distinctive greenish-yellow, black-and-white stripes going around their bodies.

Insects & Science