Right now it is in the larva or caterpillar stage. I have not seen many monarch's here this year and so I was excited to see the monarch caterpillar on the milkweed.
The previous generation’s adult butterfly lays eggs on the milkweed, when the stage one of the first generation starts. Within 4 days, the eggs hatch to form a caterpillar or larva, the second stage. At this stage, the larvae eat the milkweed on which it lives.
Within two weeks, it attains full growth and attaches to some place like a leaf or stem by discharging silk, and undergoes the process of metamorphosis to transform into a pupa or chrysalis.
In the next 10 days, continuous process of metamorphosis transforms the old body parts of the pupa into the beautiful parts of the future adult butterfly. The adult butterfly will emerge in the mid-morning time and fly away in search of food and a mate.
They live a short life that ranges from two to six weeks. Within this period, it will lay eggs for the second generation. The second generation flies roughly one month after the migrating monarchs arrive and reproduce which would be anytime from May through July. It lays eggs for the third generation in July or August. The fourth generation process is almost same except one point.
The fourth generation eggs are laid in the month of September or October, but they live more than eight to nine months. This fourth generation butterfly also has a specialty; it migrates to the warmer regions of California or Mexico.
Canon EOS 7D, Sigma 150-500 mm hand held at 500mm aperture priority at f16 CAMERA RAW cropped and resized for the web in Lightroom Classic.
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