A female monarch butterfly paid a visit to our front butterfly garden again this morning busy laying more eggs on almost every milkweed we have. By the end of the week we should have tons of baby caterpillars munching away.

Have you ever wondered how many eggs a female monarch butterfly can lay? As I was sitting in the garden watching the monarch find all the milkweed, I became very curious. According to the U.S. Forest Service, the monarch butterfly can lay between 100 to 300 eggs in her lifetime, which is amazing to me. When the eggs first hatch, the caterpillar is only one centimeter before reaching the final length of five centimeters, according to the U.S. Forest Service.

We had another monarch hatch this morning in our butterfly house. It sat on our hand all the way up the boardwalk to our beautiful penta, where it remained when we walked away.