facts about monarch butterflys?

Answer 1

Migrating marvels!

http://www.enchantedlearning.com/subjects/butterfly/species/Monarch.shtml
http://www.monarchbutterflyusa.com/Migration.htm
http://www.monarchwatch.org/tagmig/index.htm

Answer 2

wikipedia it :D

wikipedia.com and click on english than search Monarch Butterflys

Answer 3

The monarch butterfly (Danaus plexippus), a brightly patterned black and orange butterfly, is one of the most fascinating insects in the world.
This familiar butterfly has a life cycle involving four distinct stages: egg, larva, pupa and adult butterfly. This is known as complete metamorphosis.
Eggs are oval shaped and translucent green in color. Larva are horizontally striped with black, white and yellow. Pupae are a brilliant green colour, with a gold band near their silk point of attachment to a leaf or branch.
The adult monarch is orange with black stripes radiating from the point of attachment of the wings to the thorax. The black edges of the wings are dotted with white spots. Males are distinguishable from females by the presence of black coloured scent glands on each of their hind wings.

Monarchs breed in the northern United States and southern Canada. Western populations of adults, which emerge late in the season, migrate to California, and eastern populations migrate to the Sierra Madre mountains in Mexico to overwinter, or spend the winter.

Monarch butterflies are totally dependent on milkweed during their larval stage. After eating the egg from which they hatch, the tiny caterpillar begins eating milkweed leaves. The larva are eating machines and grow rapidly. In the two weeks following hatching, the caterpillar sheds its skin four times as it grows too large for its skin.

After only two weeks it is about two inches, or five cm long, and 3,000 times its birth weight! The caterpillar is ready for its change into the chrysalis, or pupal stage. The caterpillar spins a silk button in a sheltered spot such as the underside of a leaf. Attaching itself firmly to the silk, it hangs head down in a characteristic J-shape, and begins transformation into the pupa. The pupa does not eat. Inside the casing, the adult butterfly develops from the reserves built up by the caterpillar.

The monarch emerges from the pupa in approximately five days. After pumping fluid into its wings, and waiting for them to harden, it is ready to fly.
The adult butterfly has no mandibles (grasping mouth parts), feeding instead with its long tongue, called a proboscis. Adults feed on nectar, sap, juices and dew, and prior to migration build up large reserves of fat.

Monarchs have evolved a special means by which to avoid being eaten by predators. The sap of the milkweed that they eat as a caterpillar contains a chemical which tastes terrible to most birds. Birds attempting to eat a monarch butterfly soon spit it out.

A monarch's bright colors are a signal to predators of its bad taste. In addition, viceroy butterflies, which are unrelated to monarchs but look almost exactly like them, are not bad tasting to birds, but may have evolved to look like monarchs and thereby avoid being eaten.

During the summer, female monarchs look for milkweed plants in meadows, along roadsides, and abandoned farmers' fields of the northern United States and southern Canada. Females lay their eggs only on milkweed plants, and each female lays about 400 clear green oval eggs. The monarch egg is no bigger than the head of a pin, and is attached to the underside of a milkweed leaf.
Within a few days, the egg hatches and a yellow, black and white striped caterpillar emerges, beginning its life cycle. Like many insects, the monarch parents provide no care for their offspring.

Monarchs which breed early in the summer live only a few weeks. Adults die shortly after mating and laying eggs. Several generations of short lived monarchs are produced in early to mid summer. However, in late August, shorter days and colder temperatures cause the emerging monarchs to postpone reproductive maturity. This last generation of the summer will live for eight or nine months and travel over a thousand miles to Mexico, a place they have never been before.

Before migrating, monarchs gather in huge numbers at departure points such as Presqu'ile Provincial Park, on a peninsula sticking out into Lake Ontario.

In the spring, the eight or nine month old monarchs reach sexual maturity, and begin migrating in a north-eastern direction to the southern U.S. They mate all along the migratory route. Unlike their marathon journey south the previous fall, they do not complete the trip, passing this responsibility on to their offspring.


The largest threat to the monarch butterfly is human activities within their wintering grounds. While widespread on their summering grounds, the butterflies are highly concentrated and vulnerable to threats in wintering areas. Habitat destruction and changes caused by logging are a constant threat.