Monarch Butterflies

My old friend, Daisy Mak, deliberately grows a number of Butterfly Weeds in her yard to attract butterflies . Some beautiful Monarch butterflies do come during their N-S migration within North America .

Daisy is so patient as to observe and record the metamorphosis of this kind of butterflies. Like all insects, the Monarch has six legs, however it uses only four of its legs as it carries its two front legs against its body.

Daisy said, “Since the Monarch butterflies pass through Texas, I planted the Butterfly Weed (a kind of milk weed that their caterpillars love to eat) to attract them to my yard. I succeeded. This year, I found 10 caterpillars that turned to pupae. I managed to witness a caterpillar climb up my window and attached itself to the window top beam. It turned into a chrysalis (pupa). I also witnessed 3 pupae metamorphosed into adults and flew away.”

The top-left photo shows a Monarch caterpillar banded with yellow, black, and white stripes. The head is also striped with yellow and black. There are two pairs of black filaments, one pair on each end of the body.

The chrysalis (pupa) in the top-right photo is blue-green with a band of black and gold on the end of the abdomen. There are other gold spots on the thorax, the wing bases, and the eyes.

The bottom-left photo shows two adult Monarchs hatching out of the pupae.

The bottom-right photo shows the Monarch ready to fly away from Daisy’s garden.

Let us look at the Monarch closely. The upper side of their wings is tawny-orange. The veins and margins are black, and in the margins are two series of small white spots. The fore wings also have a few orange spots near the tip. The male has black veins on its wing narrower than the female’s. The male is also slightly larger than the female. The one here is female.