Monarch Hatching- Lifecycle

Tell me about the lifecycle of a Monarch Butterfly:

-  Oral narration by M, LeadFlower & Ninja

It starts as an egg.  The egg comes from the Monarch butterfly.  Each monarch lays one egg on a Milkweed leaf so the egg will survive, and when the caterpillar hatches it won't have to crawl all over the place to find food.  It's already on it.

The caterpillar will shed its skin five times, and each time it will get bigger.  Once it reaches a limit or something, it will stop eating and will hang up into a J shape for a while, and then like the skin splits out and it splits its old skin off and the new comes out, and once the old skin gets to where its feet are hanging, and once there, it will spin around until the skin comes off completely.  Once it's off, it will hang there.  

The chrysalis is a light green and around the top there are little gold dots.  And then when it's ready to hatch, it turns into purple color and the gold dots become not so much gold.  Once it becomes dark purple, it splits the chrysalis like a door until it pushes itself out.  Then it will crawl up a little bit and it will hang there with its wings tucked in.  The wings are wet, so it has to hang there waiting for the wings to dry.  It tries sometime to use their legs right as they hatch.  Once the wings are dry, they will start practicing using their wings.  Or they just sit in one spot and wait until really ready to fly. Once it's ready to fly, it will start flying around looking for light, and then flowers. 

Once it's turning to a cold season, Monarchs will take their own different, well, there are groups that take different ways to Mexico. Migration.  In Mexico they have their own little place where they sleep for a long while, and once they're ready to get up they will get up and fly around a little.   

They will lay their eggs on milkweed and then die.

Then the caterpillars hatch and when they become butterflies, they fly north and follow the bloom time of the milkweed, laying their eggs as they go.

Here's how you can tell a male Monarch from a female Monarch: The Male, if it opens its wings (they have four wings, two front and two back)  The Male has two black dots on its back wings.  The female does not have these dots.  

T (Lead Energizer and Sea Creature officinado):  Mommy! and don't forget that when a Monarch goes into a spiders web and the spider tries to it, but they are poisonous! 

LeadFlower resumes: 

Here's how to tell a Monarch from a Viceroy:

The Viceroy has on the lower wings a big V for Viceroy.  The Monarch doesn't have that.