Monarch Butterfly Metamorphosis

The monarch caterpillar metamorphosis into a monarch butterfly is one of many of the marvels of nature. This video is a time lapse video documenting the caterpillar’s transformation into a butterfly.

Another fascinating aspect of the monarch butterfly is it makes an annual trip with millions of other monarch butterflies from Canada to Mexico.

This yearly migration is one of the world’s most beautiful sights, and the monarch is celebrated several times throughout the year in festivals because of it.

Monarch butterflies make the 3000 mile trip every year and it takes 4 generations and 4 metamorphosis’s to make the entire journey.

Monarch populations are dwindling every year due to herbicides used to protect GMO crops like corn and soybean. The herbicides are drastically killing milkweed, which are the plants monarch butterflies naturally consume.

With the loss of the milkweed monarch caterpillars aren’t able to survive, resulting in the serious decline in the monarch’s number.

Monarch numbers have been on a steady decline for the last 15 years, with the 2013-2014 being the most severe. During the 2013-2014 winter the monarch coverage in the wintering grounds in the forests of Mexico was 0.67 hectares.

This was a decline of forty-four percent from the 2012-2013 winter. The 2013-2014 number was almost 10 times lower than the average monarch coverage from 1994-2014, which was 6.39 hectares.