The Beautiful Monarch Butterfly

YAY!!! I'm finally done with my latest work project so I'll be back to my usual Flickr uploads of three a day and visiting everyone's streams--I've missed you all so much!! I did post a few pictures of a Black Widow spider I found in the past few days, you might like to see them too! :) For fans of Lucky's Pond, I'll be adding new images in a couple of days, I have one more picture of my Black Widow spider before I am done! Now, on to the show! :)

When Steve and I went to the Jackson County Fair, I couldn't wait to get into the butterfly exhibit with my camera! They had two types of butterflies on display: the lovely Painted Lady and the stunning Monarch! There were butterflies everywhere and I found this one clinging to one of the mesh screen windows. I love how you can see the screen through its translucent wings!

The magnificent Monarch Butterfly is the most well-known butterfly in North America, but it is also found in many other places, including New Zealand, Australia, the Canary Islands and even the United Kingdom!

This butterfly is famous for its migration from Canada to Baja, California, which occurs between August and the first frost; the return trip begins in springtime. Did you know that this trip takes three to four generations of butterflies to achieve?! In fact, the two months it takes to travel this distance is longer than the life of these butterflies! Monarchs are also one of the only insects capable of trans-Atlantic crossings. They are also quite poisonous to most animals, and advertise this fact with their brilliant coloring.

If you would like to know more about these remarkable butterflies, Wiki has a great page here: Wiki: Monarch Butterfly