The Monarch

Last year, I planted some milkweed in order to attract butterflies…and particularly, Monarch butterflies.  And although we had a caterpillar or two last year, I never saw a chrysalis or much in the way of Monarch activity.  The milkweed we planted is a perennial, so it came up again this year, much more vigorous than the first year.  And this year, I sort of hit the jackpot for Monarchs.

We have eleven in the chrysalis stage right now, with hatching to start shortly.  I never really saw any Monarch adults earlier, but evidently something happened, because the caterpillars were all over the milkweed plants.  The plants look a little haggard now, but they will recover nicely.

I have a DVD called “Metamorphosis” that describes in some detail the life cycle of butterflies, and gives some concentration on the Monarch, which is unique, they say, among the butterflies of the world.  It seems that only the Monarch as a life cycle as an adult that varies depending on the time of the year when it hatches.  Of the five or so “hatchings” of Monarchs during a calendar year, all but one of the adult life cycles is about 4 weeks.  The remaining one….the one hatching now…has a life cycle of several months.  From now until next March, these adults will live and will migrate from the USA to certain unique places in southern Mexico to winter.  They will then start back as the milkweed begins to come out of winter hibernation, lay eggs and die.  The next adults will continue the migration northward.

The DVD also describes the incredible complexity of the life cycle…from egg to caterpillar to chrysalis and finally to adult.  It gives credible information that would lead one to believe that chance and natural selection played little, if any role in the life cycle of the butterfly.  And the life cycle of the butterfly begs the question, “Why?”  Why would natural selection have resulted in such a life cycle?  And even more, how could natural selection have created such a life cycle in the first place?

The clinching factor for me regarding intelligent design versus chance evolution in the life cycle is the fact that there are two separate animals involved…the caterpillar and the adult butterfly.  Caterpillars are living stomachs, eating constantly.  There is no hint of compound eyes, articulated legs, a proboscis, or wings in the makeup of the caterpillar, except for a few cells, called imaginal cells, located in certain places within the body of the animal.

During the chrysalis stage, the caterpillar’s cells are digested into a soup…all except for the imaginal cells, which, instead of being devoured like all the other cells, go into action.  They use this soup to create wings, legs, and so on.  In other words, the caterpillar disappears…the heart, muscles, brain, nerves…all of it…are digested into a nutrient-rich soup to be used to build a butterfly.

Dr. Lincoln Brower, Entomologist and research professor at Sweet Briar College in Virginia, and recognized authority on the Monarch butterfly, says this about the chrysalis stage.  The monarch "changes its ecological niche entirely when it transforms from a caterpillar to an adult butterfly," says Dr. Brower. "They are two ecologically different organisms, as distinct as a field mouse and a hummingbird.”

I don’t know about you, but the more I see of what goes on “out  there,” the more I am convinced that there is a Force beyond the natural…beyond the chance encounter…beyond the happenstance…that has and is guiding, directing, and working in this existence.  And the quicker we acknowledge that, the more quickly we can begin to live as we were created to live…in freedom in the glorious grace of God Almighty.