Monarch Butterfly Life Cycle with Milkweed, an Oyamel Forest & Glass Jars

Players can travel to the milkweed meadow biome and find milkweed plants that have monarch eggs on them. They can trim off leaves and collect monarch eggs and place them inside of a glass jar with a copper lid that they crafted using glass and copper ingots. Players can also harvest an entire milkweed stalk if they want to plant more milkweed at their base. 

The egg inside the jar will eventually hatch into a caterpillar, and as it consumes 10 leaves in 15 minutes it will go through a period of growth. Once fully grown, the caterpillar will climb to the top of the jar and form a green chrysalis. After 5 minutes, the chrysalis will change to black and break open to reveal a monarch butterfly. The player can then examine the butterfly in the jar to identify if it’s male or female by observing the wing markings.

After the player opens the jar outside to release the monarch, it will fly over to any milkweed plants that are growing nearby and lay more eggs for the player to collect. Milkweed stalks and wildflowers can also be used to keep monarchs near your base in order to add life to the landscape outside your home.

In addition, players will come across monarch migrations, where they can follow a group of monarchs flying through the sky. This will lead to another biome known as the oyamel forest. The oyamel forest has tall fir trees close to a mountain range. This biome is thriving with monarchs, with huge clusters of them huddled together among the branches and canopies.

images