Ever since my Grade 3 teacher brought in Monarch caterpillars to the classroom, I\u2019ve casually checked the undersides of milkweed leaves<\/a> for the familiar stripy larvae. I never found much. But then last summer my neighbour, who has reared generations of Monarchs <\/a>and Swallowtails, suggested we search for the eggs because they can be quickly predated. In his experience, caterpillars are much harder to find. And so this summer, voila<\/em>, success. The first was named Savanna, quite aptly I thought, who was quickly followed by Sunny, Summer, Tiny and Sunset. It turns out that once you start on this road, it\u2019s hard to stop. We watched our eggs hatch, caterpillars grow by orders of magnitude and fledgling butterflies emerge. It was all incredulous and addictive.<\/p>\n But with summer camps and busy work schedules, the one stage we had not yet had the luck to observe was the appearance of the chrysalis. Only once in my life had I witnessed a Monarch pupating. I knew that this was a natural phenomenon so incredible, so miraculous, that everyone should see it at least once. Unfortunately that can be difficult because the entire process can happen at any time, and it\u2019s so fast that you can almost blink and miss it.<\/p>\n