A true story
The Monarch
Danaus plexippus
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I · The Egg1
One summer morning, a monarch drifted down onto a milkweed plant. She touched a leaf with the tip of her body and left behind a single egg.
I · The Egg2
The egg was smaller than a pinhead, and ridged like a tiny melon. Milkweed is the only food her baby could eat, so she had chosen her leaf with care.
About 1.2 mm tall
I · The Egg3
For four days it sat very still. On the last morning a dark spot appeared at the top. It was a head, pressing against the shell.
Hatches in 3–5 days
II · The Caterpillar4
Then a tiny caterpillar chewed a hole in the top of the egg, and wriggled out into the world.
About 2 mm long
II · The Caterpillar5
Its very first meal was the shell it had come from. Bite by bite, it ate the whole thing.
II · The Caterpillar6
Then it turned to the leaf, and it ate, and ate, and ate. Milkweed sap is poison to birds, and the caterpillar kept that poison in its body. Its stripes are a warning.
II · The Caterpillar7
Each time it grew too big for its skin, the skin split and it crawled out, bigger. It did this four times, and left each old skin behind.
Five sizes in about two weeks
II · The Caterpillar8
When it was two thousand times heavier than the day it hatched, it stopped eating. It turned around, climbed the stem, and went looking for somewhere safe.
About 5 cm long
III · The Chrysalis9
Under a high leaf it spun a small pad of silk and hooked its tail into it. Then it let go, and hung upside down in the shape of a J.
III · The Chrysalis10
About a day later, its skin split behind its head. It wriggled the old skin up and off, and underneath was a soft green case: the chrysalis, already part of its own body.
III · The Chrysalis11
Within hours the case hardened into a smooth jade green, with a row of gold dots around it like buttons. Nobody is quite sure what the gold is for.
About 2.5 cm tall
III · The Chrysalis12
Inside, the caterpillar was coming apart and building itself again, from tiny clusters of cells it had carried since the egg.
III · The Chrysalis13
After about ten days, the case turned clear. Orange and black wings showed through, folded tight.
8–15 days inside
IV · The Butterfly14
Then the case cracked open, and a butterfly pulled itself out. Its wings were small and crumpled, and its body was fat with fluid.
IV · The Butterfly15
It hung on and pumped the fluid into its wings, until they spread out flat. Then it waited a few hours for them to dry, opening and closing them slowly.
IV · The Butterfly16
Then, for the first time, it flew. The empty case it left behind would dry out and fall away. Most monarchs live two to six weeks. Those born at the end of summer can live eight months, and fly as far as 3,000 miles to Mexico.
About 10 cm across the wings
IV · The Butterfly17
It landed on a milkweed flower, unrolled a tongue as thin as a drinking straw, and drank.
The End · and the beginning18
Soon she will find a milkweed leaf of her own and leave a single egg behind. Then the story begins again.