The Messy Transformation of a Caterpillar

The entire life cycle of a monarch butterfly from egg to caterpillar to chrysalis is only about six to eight weeks. So that butterfly spends about 25 to 30 percent of its entire life in that messy process of transformation and reinvention. In other words, some pretty gross, messy stuff happens to affect that transformation from caterpillar to butterfly,. It takes about two weeks in total.