Answer:
This depends on when they live (summer or winter). It also varies a lot among individuals (just like it does it humans). In the summer, adults live from 2 to 6 weeks in captivity, and probably about that long in the wild. The ones that migrate live longer, from August or September to about April (although a lot die before this). When people hear this, they say they’d rather be a migratory monarchs, but these butterflies probably face many more risks, and are likely to have a smaller chance of getting offspring into the next generation. These times I told you only refer to the adults. It takes them about a month to go from the egg to adult stage, so we should really add four weeks to those times. After all, we count human childhood in the human lifespan!
