Metamorphosis Watch: Day 14
Right on schedule. Two weeks after it hatched, the monarch butterfly caterpillar decided it was time to stop eating and go for a walk.
Like all insects, monarch caterpillars have six true legs near the head on what will ultimately become the butterfly's thorax. But they also have five sets of fake legs called prolegs which they mostly use to hang onto leaves and for this, the most important walk of their young lives. They have to climb and find a safe place to hide and pupate, to shed their last larval skin.
They may spend hours trundling along, climbing, to locate just the right spot. After that, the prolegs will never be needed again.
Stay tuned.
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