Butterfly Life Cycle

Here is the butterfly life cycle:

Butterfly Life Cycle

While all butterflies have this same life cycle, how long it takes for a butterfly to complete one life cycle can vary from just over 30 days to over 200 days for the Monarch!

For our butterflies, the life cycle stages and the length of each stage are:

Butterfly Egg stage Caterpillar stage Chrysalis stage Adult stage
Monarch (migrating) 4 days 15 days 12 days 180 days
Red Admiral 10 days 21 days 10 days 15 days
Buckeye 10 days 21 days 10 days 13 days
Painted Lady 4 days 10 days 10 days 14 days
Zebra Longwing 8 days 10 days 8 days 20 days
Orange Julia 7 days 8 days 6 days 21 days
Southern White 5 days 18 days 10 days 21 days
Gulf Fritillary 6 days 15 days 8 days 21 days

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