I wasn’t sure when we were actually looking at the butterfly if it was a male or female because it didn’t want to spread its wings for us and when it did, I was busy taking pictures, so it wasn’t until I was editing the pictures that I noticed the pheromone spots on its back indicating that it’s a Juan and not a Juanita.

This is Juan hanging out with us on Courtney’s arm in my garden. Both girls (Courtney and Madison) let Juan crawl around on their arms and hands but Wes would only lightly touch his wings to see what they felt like.

This is the money shot and how we learned that Juan was a Juan and not a Juanita. The two black dots near the bottom center of his wings are actually pheromone glands and indicate that he’s a male. This is Madison’s hand, btw.

At this point, Juan decided to try out flying but landed on the sidewalk and flexed his wings. I was worried that he hadn’t eaten since hatching last night and about him getting across the road to the field (I see so many monarchs on the side of the road after being hit by cars :o(), so I put him on one of the cosmos in my garden to see if he’d eat it but monarchs don’t like cosmos so after I took this picture, the kids and I carried him across the road to the field where there’s plenty of goldenrod and butterfly weed, which they do eat.

This is Juan on some goldenrod:

After that picture was taken, he decided to attempt flying again and was much more successful than his last attempt, making it about 20 feet away from us into the field. According to Wikipedia, he should pretty much eat for a few days and then begin his migration to The Mariposa Monarca Biosphere Reserve in Mexico to overwinter and find himself some butterfly ass to tap. I’m unclear as to whether or not he’ll return or if just his offspring will.

Anyway, that was our butterfly adventure. Definitely in my top 20 list of the coolest things I’ve ever gotten to witness. The kids got a big kick out of it too.