Resilient Beauty
Charles Allen Haynes
August 12, 2022
There may be nothing in nature more beautiful than a newly emerged butterfly. After the butterfly has extricated itself from its chrysalis, tenuously hanging on to the plant stem that has supported the chrysalis for about 10 days, it slowly unfurls its wings and starts pumping meconium into its wing veins. It could take up to two hours for the wings to fully achieve their final shape. Finally, when the wings are fully unfurled and dry the meconium is pumped back into its body and the butterfly begins a life among the flowers. In the case of the Monarch it will begin taking nectar from many different flowers although as a larvae it ate only milkweed…
The average Monarch butterfly lives from 2-6 weeks except for the last generation of the year that can live up to 9 months. However long the lifespan it’s not all easy. Fortunately for the Monarch and incidentally for it’s mimic the Viceroy, it tastes bad to birds. That doesn’t mean all birds look at their reference book before they make a swipe. There are many hazards along the way including falling tree branches, thunderstorms with swirling winds, speeding automobiles, several parasites to both adults and larvae and other predacious insects without a sense of taste.
They have no intellectual sense of responsibility to carry beauty into the world, day by day. They follow their instinct to keep their species alive. And then they return to the molecules from which they’re made. This is true for every single, fragile butterfly.
