Monarch butterfly –
This is what a Monarch chrysalis turns into, a big beautiful orange and black butterfly. We raised some monarch caterpillars this year and they make a pretty green chrysalis that has golden specks in it. After they hatch, their wings are all folded up and they take a day to stretch out and dry out. Then they start flying around and you have to let them go and watch them fly away.
These photos are from a migration roost where they sleep at night during their fall trip to Mexico. Monarchs spend the winter in a tiny mountain range in Mexico where it is warm. Then in the summer they fly north all the way to Canada laying eggs on milkweed as they go – thousands of miles.
It doesn’t really make sense that a monarch can do this, but it’s true. It reminds me of what I read in Sherlock Holmes one time, “When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.”
Also…I just feel happy when I see a butterfly.
