Vibrant orange and black wings sprinkled with white dots make monarch butterflies one of the most easily identifiable butterfly species in North America, and their fantastic voyage – in some cases up to 3,000 miles - from southern Canada and the northern US to Mexico each year has made them honored guests in many stopover habitats throughout the United States where they return year after year. Female monarchs lay eggs individually on the leaves of milkweed plants (species Asclepias), which nourish the caterpillars once they hatch. Milkweed is the sole host plant for monarchs, meaning that is the only thing the caterpillars eat – and it helps protect both caterpillar and butterfly by imparting toxins that make them unpalatable to predators. Earlier this year, migratory monarchs were classified as endangered after decades of population decline due to habitat loss, climate change, and decreasing availability of their primary food source. MDLT’s Nursery Production Assistant Corina Godoy captured this joyful celebration of a monarch on one of the native milkweed plants (Asclepias erosa) on site at our headquarters. You can help monarchs by planting native milkweed! Learn more about this fascinating plant in our new blog post; "Got Milkweed?". Link in bio. Two species of native milkweed will be available at MDLT's annual native plant sale coming up on October 8th - our first in-person plant sale since 2019. More details to come. 🌱 Photos: Corina Godoy Monarch information sourced from National Geographic and the International Union for the Conservation of Nature.