Monarchs and Milkweed

Have you ever heard of the "Monarch Trail"? Each year, Monarchs migrate all the way from the tip of the Door County peninsula in Wisconsin, all the way down to Mexico. They stay there for six months or so and head back.

Believe it or not, they fly all the way down for thousands of miles. A lot of them stop in Texas and lay their eggs on milkweed. The eggs will hatch into caterpillars, and then those caterpillars will eventually turn into Monarch butterflies. It's those Monarch butterflies that fly the rest of the way back up to the tip of the peninsula. Pretty wild, huh?  

By the way, did you know that milkweed is the only plant Monarch butterflies will lay their eggs on? As the eggs produce caterpillars, the caterpillars eat the milkweed. What's cool is that when caterpillars get milkweed inside of them, it actually makes them taste and smell bad to predators. So milkweed actually protects them from getting eaten! Nature sure is amazing, isn't it?