Video showing the complete life cycle of the Monarch Butterfly at our home in Southern California. Original music by Gianni Pascuzzi – Hapi Drum, Hang Drum, Didgeridoo, Tuvan igil, Array Mbira, Waterphone and more. If you’d like to attract monarchs to your garden, plant some varieties of Milkweed. Adult female monarchs lay their eggs on the underside of milkweed leaves. These eggs hatch, depending on temperature, in about 3-4 days. The larvae feed on the plant leaves for about two weeks and develop into caterpillars about 2 inches long. The caterpillars attach themselves head down to a convenient twig, they shed their outer skin and begin the transformation into a pupa (or chrysalis), a process which is completed in a matter of hours.

The pupa resembles a waxy, jade vase and becomes increasingly transparent as the process progresses. The caterpillar completes the miraculous transformation into a beautiful adult butterfly in about 10 – 14 days. The butterfly finally emerges from the now transparent chrysalis.

It inflates its wings with fluids it has stored in its abdomen. When this is done, the monarch expels any excess fluid and rests. The butterfly waits until its wings stiffen and dry before it flies away to start the cycle of life all over again.

Most predators have learned that the monarch butterfly makes a poisonous snack. The toxins from the monarch’s milkweed diet have given the butterfly this defense. In either the caterpillar or butterfly stage the monarch needs no camouflage because it takes in toxins from the milkweed and is poisonous to predators. Many animals advertise their poisonous nature with bright colors… just like the monarch!