Monarch Butterflies

The Monarch butterfly is an insect. In their body they have, one head, one thorax, and one abdomen. They also have two antennae, four wings, six legs, and a proboscis. They are invertebrates which means they have no back bone and they molt.

The life cycle of a Monarch starts out as an egg. Then after a few weeks they slowly start to come out. (Their first meal is the egg shell then they start to eat the leaf.) When they get big they hang upside down and molt so there's a chrysalis there. Two weeks later it comes out as a butterfly. This is a complete metamorphosis.

They eat nectar as a butterfly and they first eat the egg shell as a caterpillar. Then they eat the leaves. As a chrysalis they don't eat any thing.

A butterfly doesn't have a home. In the winter they are in tropical places. In the summer they are all over the world. When it's raining the butterfly stays under a leaf. The caterpillar stays on a leaf munching on a milk weed plant.

The spider is a big enemy of the monarch butterfly. So are frogs and even some humans. The caterpillars enemies are other milk weed eating insects.

Butterflies live all over the world. They migrate to hotter places in the winter. Then they go back to where ever they came from.

When they come to Mexico people celebrate their arrival and if they go to California they put a flag up. That flag has a Monarch on it.

If you can't tell if it is a girl or a boy you just look ( When it opens its wings) to see if it has a black spot. If it has a spot on it's lower wings it is a boy if it doesn't it is a girl. They sense with their feet and the proboscis is like a straw they use to drink nectar from flowers with.

The monarch butterflies belongs to the insect family because they have antennas, six legs and three body parts. Insects also have compound eyes.

Not all insects have wings but butterflies do. Butterflies are invertebrates.

The life cycle of a Monarch butterfly starts out with an egg. It hatches and is a caterpillar or larva. The caterpillar eats it's shell after coming out. Then the caterpillar transforms to a pupa by hanging upside down. It makes the shape of a J. It starts molting. The monarch caterpillar doesn't spin it's chrysalis, it molts it's chrysalis out of it's caterpillar skin. After a couple of weeks it comes out as an adult Monarch butterfly.

The Monarch's food is nectar it is like smashed sugar cubes and water. They get their nectar food from flowers. They take their proboscis and shoot it out like a straw for nectar.

Birds are butterflies enemies. So are some frogs! Little girls and boys that need butterflies for their science projects are predators to butterflies.

The Monarch's colors scare predators because of the brightness of the wings. So do the Monarch caterpillar's colors of their skin.

I learned that a caterpillar molts out of their skin to make a chrysalis.

The Monarch is a butterfly that has orange and black wings. It has a thorax and an abdomen and a head. It has six legs. It has a proboscus, that's like a straw. It's part of the insect family.

I'm going to tell you about the life cycle first. The monarch butterfly starts out as an egg. When it comes out of the egg shell it's now the larva or caterpillar, the second stage. Then it eats the egg shell which it came out of. It eats and eats until it gets too big for it's skin and then it molts five times in it's life. The last time it molts it makes a chrysalis and when it comes out it's a beautiful butterfly with orange and black wings that flutter.

The monarch butterfly eats nectar, it's like honey, but it's not. The monarch caterpillar eats the crown flower leaf.

The monarch butterfly lives under leaves and other places like your own back yard.

The monarch butterfly's are some birds, lizards and people.

The butterflies lay false yellow spots. they stick out their proboscis and drink the nectar. They taste with their feet, but they don't eat with their legs! It's kind of like a dance, but it's not a dance.

They use their antennae to smell. Some people eat monarch caterpillars, but that's too gross for me to do. They have no backbone, that's called being an invertebrate. But they do have a hard skin called an exoskeleton.

The animal family Monarch's belong to is the insect family. Their body parts are the abdomen, head and the thorax. They breathe out of the sides of their abdomen. They use their proboscis to suck the nectar out of flowers. Monarchs taste with their feet!

The first part of the Monarch's life cycle is the egg. they lay their eggs on the milkweed plant. The second part of the life cycle is the caterpillar. It eats all day long. It eats the leaf of the crown flower or milkweed plant. The third part of the Monarch's life cycle is the pupa or the chrysalis. The forth part of the Monarch's life cycle is the adult or the butterfly. The last part of the Monarch's life cycle is when they mate or get married.

Monarch's food is nectar. Nectar is just like sugar water. In nectar there is mostly sugar. Monarch caterpillar's eat milkweed leaves.

The Monarch's habitat is in places that are about eighty degrees. They live in the trees. Sometimes they live by rivers or streams. Sometimes they can survive in sixty degrees.

Enemies of the Monarch's are wasps and bees. They are their enemies because they can sting them, and ants can bite them.

Monarchs have bright colors for protection. Their bright colors warn their predators to stay away because if they are eaten they are poisonous. Even the Monarch caterpillar has bright colors to warn birds that he tastes bad!