The Monarch

Monarch

The Monarch is another beautiful butterfly that I see a lot of in my yard. They are amazing. They also migrate because they can’t tolerate the cold weather.

Devon's Monarch

Devon, one of my five granddaughters lives in the Florida Keys, and she had a Monarch lay an egg on one of her plants, she got a picture of the Monarch, and the chrysalis. I have her photos that I will include in this writing.

 Monarch Chrysalis

A Monarch Egg

Here on the left we have the chrysalis a beautiful jade green with a shiny gold shoulder band. She watched closely each stage of development. 

It was exciting for her to be able to watch this. Many of us miss it.

All stages are a beautiful sight to behold, I saw numerous larvae and chrysalis in Cedar Key when I lived there, but it seemed no matter how long I watched I never got to see the butterfly emerge from the chrysalis.

Hanging in the Trees

While I lived in Cedar Key at my 'Tin Roof Shanty' my entire yard was a butterfly garden, and when the Monarch's migrated through I could see them hanging in my Red Bay tree in the evenings (roosting) like this photo on the left, they never stayed long, but they came through every year.

Male and Female Monarch

In this next picture on the right you can see how to tell the male from the female.



If you look closely at the male you can see black dots in the second line from his body in the tail wings. Females do not have these dots. 

Monarch Larvae on Milkweed Plant

A Milkweed Plant

The Monarch will feed on nectar from other plants, but she will only lay her eggs on the Milkweed plant. 


The larvae feed on the Milkweed after the egg hatches. Milkweed has a white milky fluid that is toxic, harmless to the larvae, but is a deterrent to predators of the larvae.

The larvae can strip a Milkweed plant of all its leaves in a short time. I had beds of it in my yard year before last, and I could see just how quickly this can happen. The winter was severe and it killed it all, none has come back up, and I have not replanted yet.

Milkweed Seedpods

Their numbers are beginning to dwindle mainly because of development that destroy's their habitat. Also some people just consider Milkweed a weed and they don't like it and pull it up or mow it down.

But it is very crucial to the diet of the Monarch. I encourage everyone to let it grow, it is always loaded with seed pods after it blooms, they burst and the wind distributes the seed that are similar to tiny helicopters, and since it is a wildflower; nature takes care of it.

For those who are interested in helping the Monarch; I will include a link for you. When this link opens it also has other links you can click on to explore and learn many things about Monarch's that some of you might not have known about, just click on the highlighted blue line, if that doesn't work copy and paste to search. www.monarch-butterfly.com/

Fall Migration Route of Monarch's

Here is a map of the fall migration route of the Monarchs.