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The Cycle of Life
From Caterpillar to Butterfly - a Monarch's Story

We have had 3 monarch caterpillars on the milkweed plants in our vegetable garden. The pictures here are a combination of two of them as they metamorphosed from caterpillar to butterfly.
The caterpillar pictures are of the second caterpillar to cocoon, the butterfly pictures are of the first that emerged, and the cocoon pictures are a combination of both of them.
The pictures were taken by Lisa and Roger using Lisa's Nikon D50 6.1 MP digital camera with a 55 mm macro lens.

Click on a picture to enlarge it in a slide show.

Feeding on the milkweed	Peek a Boo.	Travelling down the wire
Climbing up the gladiolus	Sorting out a postion on the gladiolus	Getting ready to hang out
Just Hanging Around	Getting Ready	The change has started.
Twins	Settling In for the Long Haul	A butterfly lurks within
Doin' the Dew	Hanging by a thread	A few days later
Cocoon Number 1	Cocoon Number 2	Eight Days Later
Two days later	One day later	Less than an hour later
Fat Abdomen	The Twins	Crumpled Wings
16 minutes after the previous shot	Moving on Up	30 minutes later
35 minutes later	Here's Lookin' At Ya	Fully Erect
A Steady Hand	About 5 hours after "hatching"	Top View
Flexing the Muscles	Breakfast	Touch Down

Click on a picture to enlarge it in a slide show.


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All images Copyright © Lisa and Roger 2006