Monarch Butterfly
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50 free Monarch Butterfly trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
The monarch is the butterfly almost everyone can name, and its story is stranger than its fame suggests. A single insect crosses much of a continent to reach forests it has never seen, protected along the way by poisons it collected as a caterpillar. This quiz follows the whole life cycle, from egg to caterpillar to pupa to winged adult, then heads out on the migration: how the butterflies navigate, where they spend the winter and who finally tracked them down. Later questions cover predators and mimics, the science of the species and the people working to save it. It suits classrooms finishing a life cycle unit, gardeners raising caterpillars on the back porch and anyone who has watched an orange butterfly drift south in the fall and wondered where it was going.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01In 2009, a batch of monarchs was reared until the adults emerged from their pupae in which unusual location?
The International Space Station
The International Space Station hosted the Monarchs in Space project. The insects rode up on Space Shuttle Atlantis and emerged as adults in orbit.
Q 02Which Mexican holiday coincides with the arrival of migrating monarchs at their winter forests each autumn?
Day of the Dead
Day of the Dead celebrations begin just as the eastern monarchs reach their winter forests. Folklore says the butterflies carry the souls of ancestors.
Q 03Which toxic wildflower is the only plant monarch caterpillars eat, making the adults foul-tasting to birds?
Milkweed
Milkweed is the monarch's sole host plant, and females lay their eggs on it. Its loss to herbicides is one cause blamed for the butterfly's decline.
Q 04Which smaller orange-and-black butterfly mimics the monarch but has an extra black line across each hindwing?
Viceroy
Viceroy butterflies were long thought to be harmless copycats. They are in fact distasteful to predators too, so both species gain from the shared pattern.
Q 05What is the name for the hard case in which a monarch caterpillar transforms into an adult butterfly?
Chrysalis
Chrysalis is the word for a butterfly's bare pupa. Unlike a moth's, it is not wrapped in a cocoon.
Q 06Migrating monarchs hold their course using an internal body clock and the changing position of what?
The Sun
The Sun moves across the sky all day, so monarchs correct for the hour with a body clock. Scientists call the system a time-compensated compass.
Q 07A monarch caterpillar ready to pupate hangs upside down from a silk pad in the shape of which letter?
J
J is the shape the caterpillar holds for about 12 to 16 hours. Its skin then splits behind the head and is shed within minutes.
Q 08Which magazine put the discovery of the monarchs' Mexican winter colonies on its cover in August 1976?
National Geographic
National Geographic ran the story with Catalina Trail on the cover, covered in butterflies. She and Kenneth Brugger had found the colony on a mountain summit in January 1975.
Q 09What is the first thing a newly hatched monarch caterpillar eats before it starts on leaves?
Its own eggshell
Its own eggshell is the caterpillar's first meal. It then chews a small arc-shaped hole in the leaf it hatched on.
Q 10The monarch's pale green pupa is studded with small shiny dots in which metallic shade?
Gold
Gold dots sit near the bottom of the pupa, with a gold-and-black rim near the top. The shell is soft at first and hardens within about a day.
Q 11What do biologists call the monarch's four-stage development from egg through caterpillar and pupa to winged adult?
Complete metamorphosis
Complete metamorphosis is shared by all butterflies and moths. Commonly fewer than one in ten monarch eggs and caterpillars survive to finish it.
Q 12Which scientific term names the caterpillar stage of the monarch's life cycle, when it does all its growing?
Larva
Larva is the stage that hatches from the egg. A monarch caterpillar grows from a few millimeters long to about 4.5 cm before it pupates.
Q 13A monarch caterpillar is ringed with bands of black, white and which third bright color?
Yellow
Yellow bands first appear after the caterpillar's first molt. A newly hatched one is pale and almost translucent, with a large black head.
Q 21The monarch sanctuaries of Sierra Chincua and El Rosario are in which Mexican state, west of Mexico City?
Michoacán
Michoacán holds five of the eight colonies in the Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve. At El Rosario, the best known, the butterflies cover about 1,500 trees.
Q 22On which high-altitude conifer do millions of monarchs cluster through the winter in central Mexico?
Oyamel fir
Oyamel fir forests grow between about 2,400 and 3,600 meters up. Their microclimate shelters the butterflies when temperatures fall to freezing.
Q 23Overwintering monarchs on the California coast often roost in which introduced tree, even where native trees grow?
Eucalyptus
Q 14Adult monarchs feed through which long, straw-like mouthpart that coils up when not in use?
Proboscis
Proboscis is the name of a butterfly's drinking tube. Caterpillars lack one and chew with separate mouthparts instead.
Q 15Monarch caterpillars are leaf eaters, but what do the adult butterflies mainly feed on?
Flower nectar
Flower nectar from many plants fuels adult monarchs. Asters and goldenrods are major sources during the fall migration.
Q 16In warm summer weather, roughly how long does a monarch take to develop from egg to adult butterfly?
About a month
About a month is typical: as little as 25 days in summer warmth, stretching to seven weeks in a cool spring. Summer adults then live only two to five weeks.
Q 17A monarch caterpillar sheds its skin five times; what are the growth stages between these molts called?
Instars
Instars last about three to five days each, depending on temperature and food. The caterpillar's black tentacles start growing in the second one.
Q 18Where on a plant does a female monarch usually glue each of her eggs, one at a time?
Underside of a leaf
Underside of a leaf, usually a young one, is the typical place. A female may lay 300 to 500 eggs this way over two to five weeks.
Q 19Which marking on each hindwing shows that an adult monarch butterfly is male, not female?
A black spot
A black spot on each hindwing is a patch of specialized scent scales. Females lack the spots and have thicker black wing veins.
Q 20Monarch caterpillars often bite through a leaf vein before feeding to cut off the flow of which sticky fluid?
Latex
Latex flows under pressure in the leaf, so the caterpillar feeds above the cut. Older ones notch the leaf stalk so the whole leaf drops to hang vertically.
Eucalyptus is chosen consistently, though the butterflies show a slight preference for native trees. Well-known roosts include Santa Cruz and Grover Beach.
Q 24Which California coastal city sets a $1,000 fine for molesting monarchs during their winter visit?
Pacific Grove
Pacific Grove holds a Butterfly Parade each October to welcome the monarchs back. Its Monarch Grove Sanctuary sits among residential streets.
Q 25Experiments found that the body clock steering a migrating monarch sits in which part of the butterfly?
The antennae
The antennae keep their own daily rhythm even when removed and studied in a dish. Monarchs without them fly in scattered directions instead of heading south as a group.
Q 26Which Canadian zoologist tagged monarchs for decades to learn where the eastern population spent the winter?
Fred Urquhart
Fred Urquhart worked with his wife Norah and hundreds of volunteers, who tagged wings and reported sightings. The search took nearly 40 years.
Q 27The monarchs that leave Mexico in spring breed after flying only as far north as Oklahoma and which state?
Texas
Texas is where the overwintered generation lays the eggs of the next. Their offspring and later generations carry the migration on toward Canada.
Q 28The Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve in central Mexico was added to which international register in 2008?
World Heritage List
World Heritage List status came after poet Homero Aridjis, then Mexico's ambassador to UNESCO, won a unanimous vote. In 1986 he had persuaded Mexico's president to protect the wintering sites.
Q 29Which butterfly's round trip between tropical Africa and the Arctic Circle is longer than the monarch's migration?
Painted lady
Painted lady butterflies cover about 9,000 miles over as many as six generations, as radar records show. The longest eastern monarch round trip is about 6,000 miles.
Q 30Which type of mimicry, shown by the monarch and its look-alike, has two distasteful species share one warning pattern?
Müllerian
Müllerian mimicry replaced the older textbook label, Batesian, after tests showed birds find the look-alike as unpalatable as the monarch itself.