Sixteen days will go by from the birth of the caterpillar to the birth of the butterfly. The butterfly must feel the heat outside to emerge from the chrysalis, it will not get out in cold or rainy weather. If at that time, the Monarch wing touches an object, it may stick to it and break, crippling the butterfly permanently. The Monarch wings are covered with microscopic scales coloured with yellow, black, white and orange. It has six legs and its body is made of three parts, the head, the thorax and the abdomen.
Males have a black scent patch on a vein across the middle of the hind wing.
The adult Monarch feeds on flower nectar from a large variety of flowers. Contrary to the other butterflies living only a few days, the Monarch that was born around the end of the summer lives until March. The Monarch is known to be the only migratory insect going south in winter. The northern Monarch spends the summer in Quebec, in Ontario and in other regions east of the Rockies. Its migration is a matter of survival and mating.