A Monarch Butterfly or simply called a Monarch, is a only one type of milkweed butterfly in the Nymphalidae family. The Monarch Butterfly has orange wings, which is a big part of protection, because when other animals see the dangerous orange, they know to stay away for this is a sign of poison.

A beautiful monarch butterfly will approach a nearby swan plant and lay an egg on one of the leaves. In approximately 5 to 10 days to hatch into a monarch caterpillar. As soon as the egg hatches into a caterpillar it will start eating the leaves of the swan plant until it is big enough to form a chrysalis. When the caterpillar is ready to become a chrysalis it will climb one of the branches of the swan plant and hang off the branch upside down. Then the caterpillar will start to cocoon itself, after ten to fourteen days the cocoon will start to break. Emerging from the chrysalis will be a beautiful butterfly. The young butterfly will not be able to fly yet because their wings are wet from the chrysalis,so they will dry their wings in the sun. Most monarch butterflies will take a big journey to Mexico, but it depends on we're they live. If they do go on the journey to Mexico then they will lay their eggs they're and the new batch of monarch butterflies will make the journey back home, if the monarch butterfly's do not make the journey then it is still a similar process. This is how the monarch life cycle goes.

Monarch Butterflies

Sea Turtles

Contents

Eggs Growing up Dangers in the sea Adults

Published introduction

Over 150 million years ago, along with the dinosaurs, there lived a species of sea turtles.  They have managed to survive longer than many other animals from the Jurassic period.  However, only 10% of sea turtles live to breeding age.  Now that humans have come along, only 1% of all sea turtles survive to breed the new generation of baby sea turtles.

Eggs

Published eggs

The mother sea turtle digs a nesting pit high on the beach and the eggs get carefully placed into the pit by the mother. The eggs are leathery and about the size of ping pong balls. The mother lays about 50-200 eggs. 20% will not hatch.The mother sea turtle lays about 1000 eggs a year.Sea turtles lay over 68,040kgs of eggs in the sand.

Growing up

Published Growing up

Once the eggs are laid and have hatched, they are about the size of a hand. They then have to squirm desperately towards the surf but along the way there are many dangers such as crabs, birds, rubbish and holes. By this point 50% have not survived. In the first few days of life, they will swim underneath a patch of floating seaweed.

Adults

Published Adults

2 sea turtles survive to breeding age without human interference. It takes 2 decades for them to be able to breed. Through the passage of years they become the size of a dinner table. The width that they are when they are adults, they don’t have to worry about getting eaten so much.

Danger in the sea

Published Dangers in the sea

When they are small, their predators will most likely to be fish , dolphins , sharks and seabirds when they come up to breathe. They will also experience challenging weather and rough unfortunate sea currents. When they are adults the predators are bigger, like, sharks as in, great whites and bull sharks. Not likely to happen, but they might get eaten by a killer whale.

Blurb

The sea turtles have been around since the late jurassic, roughly 150 000 000 million years ago and they have an extremely hard life. A sea turtle breed named the archelon is already extinct 1000 eggs a year, 800 hatch, 400 make it to the water, 200 progress toward adulthood, 20 survive to breeding age without human interference, 2 survive to breeding age with human interference.

Glossary

survive - continue to live or exist while in spite of danger of hardship squirm - wiggle or twist from side to side desperately - in a way that shows despair decades - 10 years late jurassic - dinosaur ages

Credits

Written by: Hunter, Archie, Sarah and Charlotte Edited by: Hunter, Archie, Sarah and Charlotte