By Rebecca Ruiz, Mashable, July 11, 2021
The monarch butterfly, known for its distinctive orange color, is now on the verge of extinction. Numbering in the millions in the 1980s, the monarch population has been in steep decline thanks to habitat loss, pesticide use, and climate change. So, in fall 2020, when I spied several monarch caterpillars feasting on a neighbor's milkweed plant, I excitedly pointed them out to my young daughters. We soon noticed the caterpillars inching their way toward a neighbor's garage door, where they spun chrysalises, preparing to transform.
They'd arrived at an uncertain time, two months after we'd woken up to a sky made orange by wildfire smoke, and at the beginning of the third COVID-19 surge in the U.S. I drew something altogether human from their presence: The world may be chaotic and unforgiving, but survival is still possible because nature insists on it.
We walked by each day, anticipating empty cocoons. But the days turned to weeks and the butterflies remained locked inside their husks. They would never emerge.
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