Exploring God’s Creation – Monarch Butterflies

This summer we found something that we had been looking for for six years…

Monarch butterfly caterpillars!!

WHOA!  The children were so excited, we had to immediately find a container to bring them inside as our “pets”.

We ended up finding three caterpillars, and two of them made it through the life cycle into butterflies.

Here is the caterpillar.

And he is growing.  (Did you know they only eat milkweed plants?  And that they eat a LOT?)

Then he gets on top of the lid (no this picture is not upside down).

And forms a chrysalis.

Then, incubates for about 2 weeks.

And becomes a beautiful butterfly.

When you look around at nature and amazing things like the life cycle of a butterfly, you can’t help but marvel in God’s design!  Who else could orchestrate such a phenomenal event?

And, by the way, we did find out a great site that told us all about Monarch butterflies.  And, did you know that they have four generations every year?  The first, second, and third just stay local and make babies and then die.  But, the magic happens with the fourth generation.

They are the generation that makes the trek down to South America and back again each year, with a much longer life span than the first three generations.  Again, I marvel at God’s genius.

We figure the caterpillars that we found were the third generation (it was a little early in the year when we found them), so we are hunting for more now!

What kind of neat pets do you have?

To your success,

Dr. Laura

This post is shared at Simple Lives Thursday