Monarch Butterflies

These are monarch butterflies. First they spend 2-3 days in their pencil tip sized egg before hatching into a caterpillar. They are always born on milkweed but they can eat anything, they are also lashed on different plants to help ensure there safety. Just as the saying "don't put all your eggs in one basket." Then they eat for about 3 weeks before creating silk and hanging themselves upside down from a twig or leaf in the shape of a J. They hang for 24 hours and then shed their skin and scrunch up into a chrysalis. They spend about 2 weeks in a chrysalis before the chrysalis becomes clear allowing you to see the butterfly inside and then the butterfly cracks out of its chrysalis. The butterfly now must sit for about 20 minutes allowing their wings to dry before they fly away. They start in the USA and hen migrate to Mexico and sometimes very southern tips of California and Florida. This picture was taken in Columbia Missouri. The scientific name for a monarch butterfly is Danaus Plexippus.