My Quest to Save Monarch Butterflies, Part 3

A monarch butterfly laid this egg on the underside of a milkweed leaf.  I adopted it and placed it in a covered container. Several times a day, I would check on it.

Notice the ribbing on the egg shell. The ribs develop as the egg matures. (They wouldn't be visible without the zoom feature on my camera).

This egg will soon hatch. The dark spot is the head of the caterpillar.  An egg matures and hatches 3 to 6 days after it is laid. 

After raising several caterpillars and releasing them as butterflies, my next challenge was to look for eggs on the underside of the milkweed leaves and to attempt to nurture them to their intended destiny.  I'd read everything I could find on raising monarchs so I knew what I was looking for.

As the weather warms, monarch butterflies from Mexico and southern states make their way north. They are constantly in search of milkweed plants to lay their eggs on.  The population of monarchs is declining because milkweed has become scarce.  It has been removed from roadsides and many homeowners think of it as simply a weed and get rid of it.

A butterfly will flit from leaf to leaf, depositing one egg at a time. It didn't take me long to locate the tiny white eggs I was looking for. Fortunately, the white color is fairly easy to spot against the green of the milkweed leaves. Unfortunately, locating the eggs on the underside of the leaves is challenging as it involves a lot of stooping and neck twisting.

Initially, I picked a leaf with its egg from a plant and brought it to the screen porch.  I put the leaf and egg in a covered container on a piece of paper towel. I checked frequently on the egg. I didn't know how mature it was so I wasn't sure when it would hatch. It takes 3 to 6 days for an egg to mature and the tiny caterpillar to emerge.

In my next post, I will show you a newly emerged caterpillar. They are so cute and consequently, so vulnerable.