Some of my most beloved watercolor paintings have featured monarch butterflies in their many unique stages. Their journey from earthbound, weed nibbling caterpillar to free-flying majestic butterfly captures our hearts and ignites our own hopes for our futures.
Here’s the backstory to the beautiful monarch butterfly paintings, cards, and coloring pages I share with you;
The Monarch Butterfly Lifecycle
Where might you find a Monarch butterfly? All over the world! They have been found from southern Canada through South America, Australia, Hawaii, and Pacific Islands. (naturemappingfoundation.org). If you are looking for them around your home, look in open weedy areas like meadows, roadsides, and fields.
Monarchs pack a lot into one little life; most only live up to 7 weeks. First, they spend about 3-5 days as an egg. Monarchs are very particular about where they lay their eggs. Milkweed leaves are the only plants on which they lay their eggs and the only plants they will eat as caterpillars after they hatch a few days later.
The milkweed does more than just provide food for the butterfly; it also offers protection. Poisonous sap in the milkweed makes monarch taste rather unappealing to predators; birds learn to steer clear after a taste!
The larvae, mostly known as caterpillars, gorge themselves on milkweed for 11-18 days.
After eating their fill, the caterpillar enters the pupa stage, which lasts about 8-12 days. What does this look like? When they’re ready, the caterpillar spins a bit of silk to attach to a twig, hangs down in a “J” shape. Next that skin actually splits, falls off, and exposes the chrysalis that we see. Wow!
This process of changing from an egg to a caterpillar to an adult butterfly is called “metamorphosis” which comes from the Greek words meta which means “change”, morph, which means “shape” and osis which means “process”. So it’s the process of changing shape!
Like big words? The exact process of emerging from the chrysalis as a butterfly is called “eclosion.” Good to know, right?
As adult butterflies, you can actually tell male and female butterflies apart if you look closely at their distinctive orange and black wing patterns; males have black dots along their wing veins and are a bit larger.
As adult butterflies, monarchs switch from eating leaves to sipping nectar. They enjoy a variety of flowers in addition to milkweed including lilac, lantana, red clover, thistles, goldenrod, and more.
That’s great while it’s warm and there’s nectar available, but what happens as winter approaches? Monarch butterflies actually migrate up to about 2,500 miles from summer breeding grounds in the United States and Canada down to Mexico or California where they hibernate from November to March.
Monarch Migration
But wait! If monarchs only live up to 7 weeks, they can’t all migrate right? Yep, actually most generations of Monarch butterflies spend their lives in their summer breeding grounds. Only about every 4th generation actually makes the impressive migration to Mexico. These special butterflies live up to 8-9 months including hibernation. This last generation of the season actually can’t reproduce in the late summer, and only matures the next spring to start the next generation of butterflies in the summer breeding ground (US Forest Service)
Up to 2,500 miles is a lot of ground to cover and these butterflies are not wasting any time. According to the Farmer’s Almanac, they can travel up to 100 miles in a day, flapping their wings up to 720 times per minute (naturemappingfoundation.org). Monarch butterflies get the energy to accomplish this impressive journey from the stores of food they ate as caterpillars. Preparing and planning ahead pays off!
How You Can Help Monarch Butterflies
How can you help these beautiful butterflies throughout their incredible lifecycle?
Learn about butterflies
First learn as much as you can about butterflies so you can appreciate them as much as possible! I included more resources below
- Sign up for my email list to receive a free printable coloring book featuring coloring pages of my popular monarch paintings. These are great for kids and adults!
- This page has excellent teaching resources for all ages : https://www.fs.fed.us/wildflowers/pollinators/Monarch_Butterfly/teacherandstudent/index.shtml
- This website is all about Monarchs, Milkweeds, and butterfly habitats: https://www.monarchmilkweedmapper.org/
Garden for butterflies
Next, make your home, local parks, roadsides etc. amazing places for butterflies to live! Plant wildflowers in your yard to provide a healthy habitat for butterflies and pollinators in general. If you really want to specifically help monarchs, plant some milkweed and enjoy watching their miraculous transformation.
Share to educate others!
Lastly, share! Share information like this blog post, but also share your garden and “your” butterflies!
You can submit Monarch butterfly sightings to this website https://www.monarchmilkweedmapper.org/ to help track their migration and see what’s happening in the monarch world. It’s fascinating.
You can officially share your garden by registering it as a Monarch Waystation program. Even if you don’t want to be “official” their guide and requirements offer a good starting place for making your land monarch friendly! Check it out here: https://www.monarchwatch.org/waystations/download.html