2. The Life Cycle of a Monarch Butterfly By: Alexandria Gonzalez

3. The First Stage of Metamorphosis An butterfly egg is laid on a plant by an adult female butterfly. The plant will become food for the caterpillar that is going to hatch. Females lay tons of eggs at once, but only some of them survive.

4. The Second Stage of Metamorphosis Then, the Monarch butterfly egg hatches into a larva. The only job that the larva has is to eat the food that was provided in the plant, where the egg was laid. The larva can grow 100 times their size in the second stage. It will grow up to be two inches long in several weeks

5. The Third Stage of Metamorphosis When the larva has fully grown, and is finished eating, it transforms into a pupa. The pupa may look like its sleeping, but a lot of thing are happening in there! This soon-to-be butterfly is changing rapidly!

6. The Last Stage of Metamorphosis When the monarch butterfly is fully grown, they look completely different from the larva. The fully grown adults have long legs, long antennae, and compound eyes. The female adults job is to mate, then lay eggs. Certain species get tons of energy be feeding on nectar from flowers, but most species don’t feed at all. The female butterfly can fly from place to place, in order to find the perfect plant for its eggs.

7. Life Cycle

8. Credits http://Askkids.com/ Mrs. Cunningham’s Wiki http://Google.com/ http://Thbutterflysite.com/