There have been tons of monarch caterpillars munching on my giant milkweed lately, many of which have been relocated to our butterfly house. This male emerged yesterday and remained in the house until today when the sun came out. He hung out for a while before fluttering away.
At the right place, at the right time again, and this time I had my camera, BONUS! This female monarch butterfly emerged with such a perfection it was mesmerizing to watch, even if I have seen it hundreds of times before.
I really enjoyed watching this female elongate her proboscis once I placed her on a red penta. As I have stated before, the proboscis acts as the butterfly’s straw. The strong muscles in the butterfly’s head will stretch its first part of the esophagus to sip the nectar from the flower.
When the butterfly first emerges, the proboscis is in two parts. The butterfly will coil, and uncoil after it emerges until it fuses together.
Did you know there are muscles, nerves, and air tubes the length of the proboscis? When blood is forced into the proboscis it extends and the muscles help the butterfly move it when feeding. Tiny sensory pegs on the outside of the proboscis, one near the tip, both find and taste the nectar.
Did you know that the legs of a butterfly contains bristly hairs, which are used as their smell and taste sensors? It definitely tickles when they walk on your fingers. The legs also have a hook at the end, which helps the butterfly hang on.
I have also read that a butterfly can fly anywhere between 5 to 12 miles per hour, compared to skippers who can fly up to 37 miles per hour.
Another interesting fact I read . . . the female monarch butterfly, which is pictured above, will lay up to 100 eggs and if lucky two of those will make it through all stages and become a butterfly. That statistic alone makes me feel good that we are raising caterpillars into butterflies, helping the success rate of the monarch butterfly.
This magnificent female monarch butterfly, a resident released from our butterfly house after hatching this morning, sure let me do a great photoshoot.
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.
