Breathtaking Footage of Half a Billion Butterflies

The monarch butterfly larva likely develops a poisonous chemical known as glycoside. The glycoside is stored in its body and the chemical is formed during the metabolism. Thanks to the chemical which makes larvae not only distasteful but poisonous to many potential predators.

As it turns out, when the larvae grow into an adult the chemical passes into the adult’s body—making monarchs rather toxic to the predators. However the toxins are not equally spread over its body.

The abdomen and wings of a monarch are likely to possess greater level of toxins than the rest of its body parts. A few predators are quite aware of this. They just eat the palatable parts of a monarch—leaving behind only the poisonous parts. https://animalsanswers.com/what-eats-monarch-butterflies/

Brat wrote:Thank you so much for posting that video!  We had (some of) this group in our backyard one year.  It was spectacular!  It was on its way south to Mexico.