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Monarch Identification Bookmark/Chart
This 2-sided chart can be used to identify the sex of adult butterflies, the instar stages of caterpillars and to help find monarch eggs. Available on this website and Art Fire.
Monarch Butterfly Posters & Photos
Several monarch butterfly photos are available as posters and giclee photos on this website, Fine Art America, and Art Fire.
Monarch Butterfly Metamorphosis Poster
This educational poster includes 33 photos with commentary that highlight the differences between the sexes, an example of common milkweed, a monarch egg hatching, a caterpillar shedding its skin, the 5 instar stages, a caterpillar changing to a chrysalis, the changes in the chrysalis, and the butterfly emerging. Great for butterfly buffs. Perfect for teachers, especially if you raise monarchs in your classroom. Various sizes are available on this website, Art Fire, Cafe Press, and Fine Art America.
Shane’s Monarch Book, 2nd Edition
My son loves small books and he wanted a picture book of the monarchs. So I made one ACEO sized. This 14 page book has photos showing the metamorphosis cycle. I let Shane help pick the photos, so some are different from the poster. 2.5"x3.5". Available on this website and Art Fire.
If you click on the photo plates below, a window will open so you can see a larger view of each photo plate.
Monarch eggs (photo plate A) are 1.2mm in length and singly on the underside of milkweed leaves. Occasionally we find 2 eggs per leaf. It is estimated that a female will lay (photo plate A) an average of 100-300 eggs in her lifetime, although I have read of estimates of up to 1000 eggs in a lifetime. Of course, not all of these will become butterflies. After 3-5 days, the eggs hatch and out pops a caterpillar (larva) that is about 1/8th of an inch long. The larva in B1 just hatched a minute or two before the photo was taken with the pin head. Usually the first order of business for a 1st instar larva is to eat its egg shell.
There are 5 larval stages referred to as instars and the caterpillar will shed its skin (molt) between stages. You can compare the stripe patterns and size of the tenticles between the stages shown. From our study in 2008, we observed that instars 1-4 last about 2-3 days each and the 5th instar stage is 4-5 days in length. In photo B2 you can see an older 1st instar larva and its characteristic circular chewing pattern. Also this caterpillar is translucent and shiny in color. B3 shows a 2nd instar. 3rd instars (B4) start to munch at the leaf edges. B5 is a 4th instar and B6 is a 5th instar. When a 5th instar reaches about 2" long, it will soon be time for it to pupate. Instead of eating, they tend to wander about the container, often walking on the lid. Sometimes they spin lots of silk on the side of the container. Then they might go back to eating for a little while before deciding where to spin the final silk pad. For more info on the instar stages please visit these links:
A Field Guide to Monarch Caterpillars a PDF format guide.
MLMP Website egg and caterpillar comparison.
Normally, monarch caterpillars are very busy with eating and growing. Although we haven’t put them on the postal scale, they appear to double in size every 12 hours. Long periods of rest signal that either the caterpillar is sick or that it is about to shed it skin, which it will do 5 times. In one instance, we had 7 larvae of various ages, 5 of which had been introduced the previous day. For several hours no one ate anything and I was getting concerned that they were all sick. To my relief and surprise, they were all about to shed their skins! In photo C1 the face capsule is still attached and the skin is halfway off. In photo C2 the face capsule has been shed. Notice the yellow head. In C3 the larva is shaking his butt to get the skin off. 30 minutes later the black stripes on the head have started to appear in photo C4.
It starts with the larva spinning the final silk pad (photo D1). Eventually he will hang in the shape of a "J" (photo D2) from this pad by his last pair of prolegs. Most of our larvae hang in the J formation for 12-15 hours before pupating. Sometimes they hang for up to 24 hours, but these are usually diseased. In photo D3 you can see that the larva’s tentacles are rounded and have some rigidity. You will begin to notice the green pupa underneather the skin (photo D3 arrow). About an hour before the larva is about to pupate, the tentacles (D3 arrow) will wilt.
A larva shedding its skin is interesting, but the transformation to the pupal stage (chrysalis) leaves you in awe! After the tentacles (sometimes called antennaes, but tentacles are scientifically correct) have wilted as discussed above, the larva may wiggle around, the mouth parts will move and it will begin to push its skin towards the last pair of prolegs. Then it will hang straight and the skin will split near the head (photo E1). If all goes perfectly, it will take about a minute for the skin to be completely shed from the pupa (photos E1-4), which will hook its cremaster (photo E4 arrow) into the silk pad.
The hardened chrysalis (photo E5) is one of God’s works of art! It is a delicate jade green with metallic gold and black accents. You can see where the wings will form. The head of the butterfly is at the bottom and the abdomen at the top. If all goes well, in 10-14 days the butterfly will be ready to eclose (emerge).
Watching the butterfly eclose (emerge) from the chrysalis and unfold its wings is every bit as amazing as watching the chrysalis form. F1 was taken at 9 days at 12:50pm. You can see barely see the darkening symmetrical design of the butterfly forming. As the hours pass you will see more details. The rest of the photos were taken on day 10. F2 was taken 12 hours later at 12:57am after I got home from work. By the time I got up, the chrysalis was even clearer at 9:16am (F3). By 1:15pm I noticed a ridge had formed (photo F4 arrow). At 2:36pm I noticed that a second ridge had formed (photo F5 arrow). This second ridge has not occurred in all of our chrysalises. When I checked on the butterfly 10 minutes later, he was coming out of the chrysalis and I barely had time to grab the camera (photo F6).
The easiest way to tell the sexes apart is to look at the inside of the wings. The male (G1) has thin veins and scent spots (black spots) on both lower wings. The female (G2) has thick veins.
As discussed on the Raising Monarch Butterflies page, we tag our butterflies in August to the help the scientists study the migration patterns of the North American monarchs. Except for some of the monarchs in the Gulf areas, the monarchs east of the Rockies migrate south to Mexico for the winter. The monarchs west of the Rockies migrate to southern California.
Below is a 5 minute video of the monarch life cycle. There is no sound to it. I was experimenting with the video capability of my Nikon D90. Perhaps in the future we’ll have figured out my husband’s video camera and can produce something a bit higher quality using his Adobe software instead of my freebe video program. Incidentally, the butterfly that is shown eclosing is Homer (from the train ride on my Blog 1 page).
Monarchs in Space: Really! In 2009 monarchs were eclosed on the International Space Station! This page has the links to info, photos and videos on the project.