A Fun Project
Last summer, August 2008, we were taken up with one of God's great marvels: BUTTERFLIES! We never cease to be amazed and facinated with watching the process of the Monarch Butterfly.
In our back yard we have a special milkweed patch that matures during the summer. By the end of July the female Monarchs comes to lay tiny eggs on the leavesof the Milkweed.
Some days later these eggs hatch into a beautiful and colorful caterpiller.The caterpiller grows very fast, from a tiny"worm" that you can hardly see to about two inches. To watch these caterpillers eat and eat and eat, it is amazing to see how fast they grow!
Eventually the slow down and look for a place to make a sticky web-like patch high up on a branch. There they will "stick"themselves and hangupsidedown in a "J".
They will go into a sleep and after several hours, their skin begins to shed and fall off.
They turn into a beautiful green crysilis with amatalic gold rim. They remain likethis for about 10 days, depending on the tempreature.
When it comes time to hatch, the crysilis will begin to darken. When you begin to see theorange and black butterfly.
Soon it awakens and emerges from it crysilis, all wet and wrinkled. It remains hanging onto its crysilis, pumping its wings until they stretch out and dry.
The Monarch soon flys off to start the cycle all over again.