Newborn Monarch Under Microscope

Found this little guy on our milkweed this morning. I watched it for a while and he was so afraid to leave the safety of the rib of the leaf where he clung... or so it seemed to me :)

Here are some images of an unhatched egg from the same plant under the microscope. I had to see if it really looked like the corn cob image in the children's book The Very Hungry Caterpillar - it does!

Both larva and egg are back in the garden on the milkweed now to "...spin and die, to live again a butterfly."

Here is a video of a monarch larva cocooning. It's from an earlier set of monarchs from a few weeks ago. Interestingly, there were three of them - two under our kitchen window and one on this loose window we had leaning against the wall in the garden - and they all cocooned on the same day and emerged from their cocoons on the same day.

They cocooned March 16, 2015. And then emerged April 2, 2015. Exactly 17 days. Here is the butterfly getting ready to emerge - the cocoon becomes translucent and the creature to emerge is clearly visible. 

In case all of this makes you want to sing for joy, you can!

Here's a link to another post with more pictures of the Monarch under the microscope: http://thechangingyearoc.blogspot.com/2014/07/monarch.html