The illustration demonstrates the developmental stages of the Monarch butterfly.
Overall, the life cycle of the Monarch butterfly comprises four steps, which can be categorized into two main stages: the egg-to-chrysalis progression and the chrysalis-to-adult transformation.
The early stage from the egg phase to chrysalis involves two steps. Initially, on the leaves of Milkweed plants, adult butterflies lay their eggs, which will hatch into caterpillars after 4 to 7 days. These caterpillars then grow to two centimeters in length after 2 to 3 weeks of feeding on the Milkweed’s leaves, ready to turn into chrysalises.
In the next stage, the caterpillars form chrysalises, which hang from the branch over the period of 8 to15 days. Eventually, growth butterflies emerge, reaching a wingspan of 7 to 10 centimeters. In nature, these fully developed butterflies typically live for 2 to 4 weeks, consuming nectars as their main food source. After this period, they will return to the Milkweed plants to lay their eggs, and the life cycle of these butterflies begins again.