Monarch caterpillars molt (shed their skin) five times throughout their larval stage. The "skin" that is left behind is actually the caterpillar's exoskeleton. An insect's skeleton is on the outside, as opposed to on the instead like mammals, fish, reptiles, amphibians and birds. Endoskeletons provide support inside the body in the form of bones and cartilage, whereas As caterpillars grow, their exoskeleton gets too tight, so they need to shed it in order to continue to grow. Each molt results in a new "instar" stage. Therefore, when the egg hatches, that tiny 2 mm caterpillar is in its first instar stage.
It will molt three more times and grow exponentially over a couple of weeks. Each stage lasts 3-5 days. The fifth and final molt is when the fifth instar caterpillar becomes a chrysalis.
Participate
Participating in community science (also called citizen science) is key to understanding and conserving our natural world. Your help is desperately needed for monarch counts, sightings, habitat and milkweed data collection, habitat restoration, outreach events and more. Hands-on involvement is the best way to find the right program or project that fits your interests and skill set. The best part about it, is literally anyone can participate in a community science project. Anyone!
Do you enjoy getting outside and observing animals or plants? Monarch community science projects can be extremely diverse. Determining what you enjoy enough to stick with, will help you decide what type of organization you should contact. When you decide to take the plunge and become a community scientist, your world will open up and you will see how appreciated you are by scientists who can't be everywhere all the time. You will truly understand what it means to be part of the solution.
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Below are links to monarch community science opportunities. Monarch Joint Venture has a full list with each opportunity broken into areas of interest. One of the longest running community science efforts is the Xerces overwintering count, which is also included in the MJV community science opportunities, but is highlighted here due to it happening right now! There are now three counts/surveys to participate in if you live on the west coast. These are all great opportunities for west coasters to become involved in monarch conservation. An easier and less intensive way to participate is through iNaturalist. They have numerous organizations on the app that collect photos and data on monarchs sightings with no commitment or training, if that sounds more like your thing!
If you don't find something you're interested in, and think you'd like to do something different like invasive species surveys or monitoring, simply Google "invasive species monitoring opportunities near me" or "community science opportunities near me" to locate one that interests you.