For several summers I raised 25 monarch butterflies at the lake cabin. The area around Long Lake had several areas where milkweed, the staple food of the young caterpillar was growing in abundance. It was easy to find new caterpillars on the milkweed leaves, but harder to find the eggs. The second and third images show the size of a newly laid monarch egg. The first photo show the egg next to an edge of a dime, the next show the detail of the egg as it sits on a milkweed leaf. Eggs hatch in 3-5 days then the small cats grow until they are approximately two inches long. Images 4-7 show the cats dining on the milkweed leaves. I found the best way to raise the cats was to place them in cheap Walmart aquariums. I would keep the aquariums filled with leaves. Once the cats grew to about 2 inches, the cats will start looking for a place to hang to begin the transformation from cat to chrysalis. Images 9-11 show the process of the cat evolving into a chrysalis. The cat will climb to the top of the aquarium lid, then using a web similar to a spider secure themselves to the top of the lid to start the chrysalis transformation. Once the monarchs were ready to emerge ( 10-12 days ) from the now translucent chrysalis, I could hang the lids outside where the emergence could be photographed. The new monarchs emerge with small wings and a large abdomen which is full of fluid that will be pushed into the small wings causing them to quickly grow. For the next couple hours, the newly emerged monarchs hang allowing the wings to dry and at the same time exercising their wings. Once the wings are dry monarchs fly off to start the whole process again. But if the monarchs are raised at the cabin they become reluctant photo subjects. Due to pesticides, cutting down of milkweed and deforestation in Mexico the overall number of monarchs has significantly decreased in the last several years.
Category:Animals
Subcategory:Butterflies
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© David L. Shogren Photography
