Welcome to Milkweed Cafe's video page.  
If you have never seen how a caterpillar forms its chrysalis or how a butterfly emerges into the 
world, be sure to check out the QuickTime videos below.  Though interesting to see on video, 
watching these changes first hand is amazing!  
         
All butterflies go through four life stages.  The first is the egg which is laid on a host plant leaf by a 
gravid (pregnant) female butterfly.  The female will only lay her eggs on plants that the resulting
         caterpillar can eat. Once the caterpillar has hatched from the egg, it will eat and grow until it reaches 
its full size.  At that point, it enters the third or pupal stage.  The caterpillar forms a structure called
a chrysalis in which it will transform into an adult - a butterfly. (There's no such thing as a baby
butterfly!) This is the fourth and final stage. The adult will most likely seek a mate after emerging 
from its chrysalis and the cycle of life will continue.

The first video shows an accelerated version of a monarch caterpillar entering the pupal stage. The 
whole process actually takes several hours from the time the caterpillar begins hanging in the J 
formation until the chrysalis is completely formed and hardened. It will remain in this stage for roughly 
two weeks.

         The second movie shows an adult monarch butterfly emerging from its chrysalis. At this point, the 
butterfly is very vulnerable. Notice how tiny its wings are and how large its abdomen is  when it 
first emerges.  The butterfly must hang vertically until the fluid from its abdomen is pumped into its
wings, fully expanding them. Only then can it fly.