Monarch Butterfly Life Span for Pet Owners

Posted by articlelink01 on May 3rd, 2014

The life cycle of a monarch butterfly is a wonder of nature that you can witness if you will buy a butterfly kit and grow one inside your own home. The monarch butterfly life span begins as an egg on a milkweed plant, transform into a caterpillar until it turns into a lovely butterfly. This change is called “metamorphosis”. If you are planning to get a kit to grow monarch butterfly, then you need to become aware about their needs and requirements. The mating season starts during late winter and early spring because this is the time when these butterflies end their migration. Females will start to look for milkweed plants to lay eggs. A single female butterfly can deposit hundreds of eggs on a milkweed plant, but not all of them will survive.

If you choose to buy a butterfly kit, then you will get a caterpillar and not eggs. These tiny caterpillars will shed their skin 5 times as they grow and they need milkweed plants for nutrition. It will build its own cocoon or also known as chrysalis during their metamorphosis stage. The chrysalis changes within the period of seven days. The green outside covering of the cocoon will start to become clear in color, so you will be able to see the developing butterfly inside with color black and orange. Once the transformation phase was completed, then the cocoon will break and the butterfly will detach its body from the cocoon. You will see how beautiful these monarch butterflies are from tons of pictures of butterflies that you can find from the internet.

When the butterfly is already out from its cocoon, then their adolescent stage will start. You will notice that there is a fluid that will pump from its lifeless wings and it will expand fifty times larger than before. The butterfly will dry and harden its wings for the nest several hours using the heat from the sun. So, it is better if you will allow your butterfly to go around your garden so they can dry their wings under the sun. After that, monarch butterfly is now ready to fly and continue the monarch butterfly life span by mating and laying eggs again.

Those butterflies that latch during spring and early summer have very short life span of 2 to 5 weeks. Those butterflies that were born during late summer have the longest life span of 6 to 9 months. These monarch butterflies from late summer are the ones that perform migration, but they will soon die right after that. New generation of monarch butterflies will live and the life cycle continues. There are tons of pictures of butterflies that you can research online to find out what they look like. If you want to become a part of their life cycle, then you can buy a monarch butterfly kit and witness their amazing transformation from a simple caterpillar into a beautiful butterfly. The kit is complete with their habitat and milkweed plant to ensure that it has enough food to eat.

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For those who want to see monarch butterfly life span aside from looking at tons of pictures of butterflies - -http://www.butterflypictures.net/  - , then you can order a complete kit and enjoy their metamorphosis.