The Butterfly Life Cycle

The Butterfly Life Cycle

The Life Cycle A monarch butterfly has four stages in its life cycle. They are egg, caterpillar, pupa, and adult.

Egg A female monarch butterfly lays an egg on the bottom of a leaf. She might lay several hundred eggs in her lifetime. The eggs are oval shaped. A caterpillar grows inside the tiny egg. The egg hatches in three to twelve days.

The hungry caterpillar eats all the time. It needs a lot of food to grow. First, the caterpillar eats its own eggshell. Then, the caterpillar eats the leaf it is on.

The caterpillar grows quickly, but its skin does not grow. The caterpillar's old skin splits and peels away. The caterpillar will shed the old skin many times in this stage.

New skin is under the old skin. It is soft at first but soon hardens. The caterpillar sheds its skin four to six times and eats the old skin each time. The caterpillar grows for two to four weeks.