My flower gardens are in full bloom with hundreds of brightly colored blossoms just waiting for a visit from the marvelous Monarch butterfly. However this summer has not been very good for this winged wonder. And it doesn’t surprise me considering all the obstacles that lay in the way of a reproducing monarch.

Monarchs are members of the order lepidoptera. Lepidoptera is a fancy word that means: (lepis, Greek for scale, pteron, means wing. Together it means scale-wing.) Butterflies and moths are the only insects with wings covered with tiny scales.

The wing scales are responsible for a monarch’s bright red and black color. If you have ever caught a butterfly in your hands and after releasing it seen a fine powder on your hands, these are scales. The average butterfly has 250,000 scales per square inch of wing surface.

Monarchs go through four different stages of life, which is called, “complete” metamorphosis. Some insects go through only three of the four life cycles, which is called incomplete metamorphosis.

As you might expect, a Monarch starts out as a teeny tiny egg. Mother Monarchs are capable of laying hundreds of eggs. Each egg is place on a “host” plant. In the case of the monarch the host plant is a member of the milkweed family. From these tiny eggs emerges an extremely tiny caterpillar. And this is where things start to get interesting.

Plants in the Milkweed family have a milky sap that contains toxic chemicals called cardio-glycosides. The toxin causes hot flashes, sweats, nausea, vomiting and weakness to any animal that eats it. The caterpillars are unaffected by the chemical.

The caterpillar only has one job–eat. And eat it does. All day for up to two weeks the caterpillar feeds on the milkweed leaves.

After eating and growing to full size, the caterpillar crawls off to a safe location to rest. This is called the pupa stage. The caterpillar undergoes an unbelievable transformation. The caterpillar attaches itself to a stick and hangs upside down. It than sheds its skin to reveal an inner, bright green sack, called a chrysalis. Within the chrysalis, each cell of the caterpillar liquefies and reforms or transforms to create the butterfly.

Finally, the butterfly emerges from the chrysalis, which starts the fourth and final stage of the marvelous Monarch. The adult butterfly flies off to find a mate and to start the life cycle all over again. Since Monarchs produce several of these cycles each summer, the monarchs that hatch in September are very special. These late summer Monarchs are the ones that migrate to Mexico for the winter and are solely responsible for producing next years Monarchs. Until next time….