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. A butterfly's body goes through big changes at each stage in its development.

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

The hungry caterpillar eats constantly. It needs a lot of food to grow. First, the caterpillar eats its own eggshell. It also eats any other eggs on the same leaf. 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 in a process called molting. The caterpillar will shed its old skin many times in this stage. The time between each molting is called an instar.

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. The more it eats, the more it can grow after each molting.