The Life Cycle of The Monarch Butterfly

The life cycle of the Monarch Butterfly is a smooth journey from eggs via a monarch pupa to a butterfly. These eggs are found in different young plants at the bottom of the leaves.

Being surrounded by a shell named chorion, the eggs remain attached with the leaf; the chorion remains covered by natural wax in order to maintain hydration of the egg as well as to keep the larvae safe. The immediate stage after the egg is larvae. The larva head looks black and it has black filaments at both the end of the body. Before going to reach at Pupa stage, the larva moults its exoskeleton for five times and interim period of each moulting is called instar.

At pre pupa stage after 5th shedding of skin, hormones starts kicking in, and within 2 days, the larva gets converted into a full grown pupa.

After about 10 days, an adult butterfly emerges out of a moulting pupa and thus completes the life cycle.