The Colorful Life of Monarch Butterfly

The Colorful Life of Monarch Butterfly

The Colorful Life of Monarch Butterfly

Among all the North American butterflies, Monarch is the most popular one. It is a milkweed butterfly and lovingly called Wanderer in Australia, where its discovery traces back to 1871.It has a wingspan of about 9 to 10 cms and has a lovely tawny orange and black patterned body. The females can be distinguished by their darker veins while the male are slightly larger and have androconium which is a black spot in their hind wings. Like most other insects it has got six legs out of which it mostly uses four. This group of butterflies is best known for their habit of migrating southward and returning northward. Monarch butterfly migration and life cycle makes for an interesting study.

Courtship is noticeably simple with two main stages. Thankfully monarch mating and courtship, compared to other species of butterfly is much less dependent on the chemical pheromones. The first in the two stages is the aerial phase, where the male monarch pursues and nudges the female. Finally it takes the lady down for copulation. This stage is called the ground phase phase when the male and female remains attached for around 30 to 60 minutes.

During this time the male transfer spermatophore to the female.along with sperm, spermatophore is also a reseserve of energy giving elements that helps the female in remigration and reproduction also. The life cycle of a monarch butterfly is divided into four stages and the whole procedure is known as metamorphosis.

In the first stage the monarch mother lays her eggs, generally during spring and summer seasons. A monarch's eggs are creamy white in color which turns yellow with time. Approximately after 4 days the eggs hatch and caterpillars which looks rather worm like are released. The caterpillar is a long cylindrical creature with white, yellow and black bands. It looks rather attractive because of the bright colours and about 5 cm in length. These caterpillars first feed on their respective egg cases and then depend on milkweed for nourishment. They eat and store enough for the next stage is the pupa stage where no feeding occurs.the caterpillar stage streches for about two weeks. After this the chrysalis or pupa gets formed. During this stage the caterpillar itself spins a pad like stuff with silk on a leaf or twig.it thereafter hangs from the pad with the aid of its prolegs. During the next few stages it molts forming an outer exoskeleton. In the beginning the exoskeleton looks green. After this the hormonal infusions occur and the exoskeleton darkens inside which the caterpillar turns into a butterfly, and grows orange-black wings. Later when the exoskeleton turns transparent, just before the day it emerges, the wings can be seen.

After about two weeks of pupal stage, the chrysalis splits and the monarch gets released and remains hanging till it is mature enough. Firstly the dry and crinkled wings are supplied with enoungh meconium, which is an orangish fluid, to make them stiff, sometimes the excess fluid can be seen dripping from the wings. When it is stiff enough the monarch spreads them and quiver them to be sure of the stiffness and then finally flies off to feed on fresh flowers.

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