Taking Lessons From The Brilliant Monarch Butterfly

We don’t give animals, or any living thing for the matter, enough credit. When you think about the Monarch butterfly, what is the first thing that pops into your head? I figure it’s words like “beautiful” or “delicate” or “fragile”.

Photo by Joshua J. Cotten on Unsplash

They are actually pretty strong, resilient insects. No, they aren’t off showing a honey badger they don’t take any lip. And they don’t flair up their wings to keep predators away. Do you know what they do though? They work together as a team. They migrate from Mexico to Canada and back again. When I say they are a team, I mean a generational team. It takes 4 or 5 generations to accomplish a single migration.

One butterfly takes a leg of the trip, lays eggs. These hatch very hungry caterpillars and start eating though apples, pears, plums, chocolate cake, sausage, watermelon. Okay, FINE. They eat milkweed. Then the build a cocoon, dissolve into mush and emerge as a beautiful butterfly!