It only took a couple days for the Monarch caterpillar to form a chrysalis on June 5th. Then just 9 days later, a new Monarch butterfly emerged from the chrysalis. To feed to butterfly, I made a sugar-water solution and soaked a piece of papertowel. After a few days of enjoying the butterfly, it was released so it could continue it's lifecycle. Below are pictures of the Monarch chrysalis and butterfly feeding off of the papertowel.
During the past week or so, I've been finding more and more Monarch eggs and tiny caterpillars on our Milkweed plants. I also noticed alot of them disappearing after a few days, which I think is caused from their natural predators like spiders, wasps, and lizards. It's not uncommon for less than 10% of them to survive. So in an effort to help out the Monarch population, I collected some more eggs so I can hatch and raise them to an adult butterfly. Right now I have 7 caterpillars. Three of them just hatched today. The Monarch caterpillar cycle only takes about 2 weeks so it's amazing to watch how fast they grow in a single day. The last picture posted here is one I took of a Monarch laying an egg on the underside of a leaf. I was just planting some more Milkweed plants one day and this Monarch was flying around me the whole time.
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