The life cycle of the Monarch butterfly begins with
milkweed.
Depending on where you live, you can raise Monarchs whenever milkweed is growing in your area.
I live in the Midwest, so for us this is June through August.
Milkweed is the
host plant
for Monarch butterflies. That means it is the only food that the Monarch caterpillar will eat.
In my opinion, Monarchs are THE most interesting butterfly.
If you are impatient, you should be able to find some common milkweed along the roadside or in a wild, weedy area.
You might see a Monarch butterfly flying near the milkweed and touching down briefly on a leaf. Inspect the underside of the leaf and you should see a tiny Monarch egg.
Once you know what the eggs look like, it won’t be long before you become a pro at finding them.
Remove the leaf from the plant. You can place the leaf in a plastic sandwich container.
Put a wet paper towel inside the container and then put the leaf on top of the paper towel, egg side up.
Snap the cover on the container. Make sure that the paper towel stays wet. I have a high success rate with this method. The humidity produced in the plastic container seems to be beneficial.
I have also cut the stem of the milkweed and placed it in a narrow-necked vase of water.
It takes about 3-5 days for the egg to become a caterpillar.
The first clue of this change is when the top of the egg turns black (caterpillar head). This picture (Right) shows an egg on left leaf with black head and newly hatched caterpillar on the right leaf.
Now, we move on to the
second stage
of the life cycle of the Monarch butterfly – the caterpillar.