T he monarch butterfly life cycle begins with a whirl of wings in the heat of the summer sun. As a female monarch sips nectar from a wildflower, a male hovers nearby.

The Monarch Butterfly is one of the most distinctive and colorful butterflies that occurs in west Texas. The upper wings are dark orange in coloration and are bordered in black.

A WFSU producer and his family raise monarch caterpillars, watch them become butterflies. Over the summer, WFSU Ecology producer Rob Diaz de Villegas found a few monarch caterpillars in his garden ...