by Arin Greenwood
Three days ago I went outside my house in St. Petersburg, Florida, and found a butterfly struggling on my front path. She was flapping and trying to fly, but couldn’t get off the ground. I bent down to look more closely and saw she was missing half of one of her wings.
I considered leaving the butterfly where she was. She’d get eaten by a bird, I thought. It was not a bad way to die.
But instead I picked her up and brought her inside.
I placed the butterfly in a cardboard box, not knowing what else to do with her. The internet told me to put milkweed in the box in case the butterfly had eggs to lay. I went into the yard and picked some milkweed, and put it in the box. She seemed excited by the milkweed, working to get herself on it. It looked to me like she was making egg-laying, gyrating-like sorts of motions that maybe meant something. When she stopped, I put the milkweed leaves back outside with the rest of the milkweed, thinking if there were eggs then hopefully that is where they would be most likely to hatch.
Thinking she might want pollen, I put some flowers in the box, too, but she didn’t show any interest. I saw one suggestion to put water-soaked cotton balls in the box, in case the butterfly was thirsty. She didn’t seem to want the water, either. Her box looked severe and unpleasant. 
I learned from Google that butterfly wings don’t regenerate. This butterfly would never be able to fly. The only consolation was that the internet told me that butterflies don’t have nerve endings in their wings. They don’t feel pain when the wings are harmed. They might not feel pain at all.
I put the butterfly in her box in the bathroom and shut the door, so the cats wouldn’t get her. I went to Target to see if they had an insect habitat I could put her in, instead of the box. They did not. I placed an order on Amazon, and picked up some mesh laundry baskets, figuring they could do in the meantime. I had no idea how long this butterfly would be with me. It seemed excessive to buy so much stuff but cruel not to.
My field is animal welfare. Someone in my world might have ideas of how to take care of this butterfly. I posted to Facebook, asking for help.
A wildlife rehabber said she wasn’t aware of anyone who took care of sick or injured butterflies. But a woman who specializes in skunk rescue told me she knew of a local veterinarian who’d helped repair another butterfly’s wings a few years ago. I called the veterinary hospital. The woman who answered the phone said she’d been there when the other butterfly’s wing was repaired. But in that case, the person who found the butterfly had the piece of ripped off wing, and the vet was able to reattach it. I didn’t have the piece of ripped off wing.
I got suggestions about what food to give the butterfly — sliced up fruit, especially watermelon, since they would keep the butterfly fed and hydrated. We didn’t have any watermelon. I cut up some grapes and oranges and put them in the box. She seemed indifferent to them.
I locked the butterfly in the bathroom that night, again to keep the cats away. I went to bed not knowing if she’d be alive in the morning — or if I was even doing the right thing. Maybe it would have been better to let her die outside, in the sunshine and fresh air. Not trapped in a laundry basket in the bathroom. I kept imagining the headline of this story: Well-Meaning Weirdo Imprisons Sick Butterfly In Misguided Rescue Effort.
The next morning, the butterfly was still alive. I named her Mona, without actually knowing if she was male or female. I’d only guessed about her laying eggs. I gave her more grapes and oranges. This time she sat on them and unrolled something from her mouth that I learned is called a proboscis, an organ which functions as a sort of built-in straw. I took a picture and posted it to Facebook. People seemed delighted by Mona. I felt delighted by Mona. I was thrilled she’d made it through the night. So were her new online fans. People were enthusiastic about Mona’s survival.
Mona’s habitat arrived from Amazon in the afternoon. It was a light and airy mesh cube. Much better than the box.
I put fresh flowers in the habitat, and more fruit. While I worked I kept her on my desk, which is beside some big windows, which I opened so she’d have light and air. Mona climbed her new habitat’s walls and clung to the side closest to the windows. I had no way to gauge if she was happy or satisfied with this situation, but maybe.
I sent my husband out to pick up watermelon. When he saw me cut it up and put it in Mona’s habitat he said, “I thought it was for you,” as if I’d tricked him. My husband is a wonderful man but not always quite as eager to engage with the natural world, especially when presented in the form of an injured insect.
“I don’t understand why you have me kill cockroaches but you want to save the butterfly,” my husband said to me. I couldn’t give him a logical explanation. It was a purely emotional thing. I don’t know why I felt this need to care for Mona. I just know I felt it. (I also feel it’s irrational to be afraid of cockroaches. They aren’t harming me. I don’t have any logical reason to fear them, or order them killed. I’m not totally consistent. I’m working on it.)
“She needs me,” I told my husband. Caring for Mona felt almost like a religious impulse. Anyway, life is full of practical compromises against principal. I had to kill an ant in Mona’s enclosure, in fact. It was too small to pick up and move and she was too injured to escape it if it tried to eat her. What else could I do?
Mona survived another night, in her habitat up on a kitchen counter away from the cats. She was very still in the morning, but alive. I posted more photos of her with her fruit and her flowers to social media. Many people shared in my thrill of her continued existence (or at least said they did). I walked to our local nursery and bought more milkweed, in case she had more eggs to lay, and a small potted plant with lots of flowers on it, so that she would feel like she was outside where she belonged. I put both plants in her habitat but she didn’t seem to be interested in them and they took up a lot of room so I took them out again. I did a lot of internet searches to find out if butterflies have emotions like happiness, or if they make friends. Google didn’t have a lot of answers.
A friend told me she’d once taken in an injured butterfly, and brought the butterfly outside sometimes for some sunshine and air. I tried that with Mona. Outside, on my hand, she fully extended her wings — the whole one, and the half — and beat them softly, though of course I had no way to know if this indicated contentment or something else. It seemed like one of her front legs might also be injured, I noticed for the first time, but I couldn’t quite tell. Maybe it wasn’t.
I looked closely at Mona’s face, trying to really see her. I’ve looked at many monarch butterflies’ wings in flight, but not up close at their bodies or their faces. Her body was soft as if covered in down, black with white spots, and some orange smudges that looked like pollen — though when I petted her body, delicately and ready to stop if she seemed not to want me doing it, the orange didn’t wipe off. Her head was small and oblong with two long, cute antennae with bent tips. I could swear she tilted her head as if she was taking it all in with those enormous (comparatively) eyes, observing me, but I was probably wrong.
Google said butterflies have complex eyes and can see UV light, unlike humans. They have hearts that are as long as their body, and brains. You can tell the males from the females by looking at their wings. Males have a spot on their wings, where the females do not. Mona did not have the spot. I’d been right to call Mona “she.”
Her feet were covered in little spikes that help her stick to things, and they felt pleasantly prickly on my skin. I googled, “Do butterflies like people?” The results there were unsatisfactory. One sweet video about a student who was followed around by a butterfly for a time, but no science or data I could hang my hat on.
Someone I know on Twitter suggested I reach out to an entomologist named Michael Raupp at the University of Maryland. I sent him an email with the subject line: “Strange butterfly question.” I described the situation, showed him photos of Mona’s habitat, and explained that I was concerned Mona would be unhappy living inside with me.
“Is there anything else I should be doing to keep her alive and comfortable?” I asked. “Is it cruel to keep her inside of a habitat like this — is it better to put her back outside, where at least she’ll have fresh air before getting eaten?”
Professor Raupp responded with reassuring words:
“Hi Arin, patron saint of monarchs. What you have done is fine. Enjoy her while she lasts in your habitat. There is plenty of fresh air for her in your home. When she passes, please put her body outside in a nice spot where her remains will reenter the food web of life. You are very thoughtful. Thanks for caring for bugs. Cheers! Mike”
Mona lived that day, too. She lived through the next night. She seemed slow and creaky again in the morning. I posted photos to Facebook with the text: “Maybe she’s not a morning person.” Mona’s online fans greeted her anew. I gave Mona more fruit for sustenance, and fresh flowers because they looked nice. I took her outside again.
In my time with Mona, she’d never seemed especially concerned about food. I’d learned by then that butterflies taste food with their feet, and in captivity it’s sometimes necessary to place them on the food you want them to eat. Then, if they don’t extend their proboscis on their own, you can force it out by unfurling it with a toothpick or paperclip. I decided I would put her on the fruit but wasn’t going to unfurl the proboscis using any tools. If Mona didn’t want to eat, I wouldn’t make her. I’d grown very attached to this butterfly in just three days, but she had so little freedom to make decisions for herself. If she didn’t want this life I wasn’t going to insist. 
At lunchtime, while I was on a work conference call, I gave Mona more cut grapes and watermelon. Mona climbed on them and voluntarily ate. I thought she seemed to be doing well. The cats circled her enclosure, also intrigued by the visitor, but in a less benevolent way. I shooed them away from her.
Not long after lunch I saw Mona seemed to be struggling, more than before. She kept trying to climb the wall of her habitat, and kept falling. It seemed harder and harder for her to get back up. Her legs did not appear to be working very well. Whatever little I know about butterflies, it was clear that Mona was dying.
The afternoon sun was strong. I picked Mona up and took her outside, so that she would feel the warmth and the wind. I hoped she was ok in my hands. Maybe she would have been happier if I’d kept her in her habitat. I just didn’t know what was going on inside her little head. I was trying my best. She hung on a little while, then was still.
After Mona died, I put her in my yard, as Professor Raupp suggested, placing her in a pot with a hibiscus plant, and covering her with some flowers. She was near the milkweed patch where I’d put her eggs. It seems dramatic and almost ridiculous to recount, but I cried as I told her lifeless body that she’d done a good job. She’d laid her eggs. She’d made her babies. She’d been an excellent butterfly.
Because this had been a communal effort, I posted the sad update to Facebook. I knew people had grown fond of Mona, but was surprised and moved by the tremendous outpouring of affection and support. Mona’s life had meant something to a lot of people.
The internet tells me that monarch butterflies have very short lifespans. Just a few weeks. It could be that this would have been Mona’s natural end, even had she not been injured — even had she not been relying on my amateur efforts to keep her alive.
I know in the scheme of things that giving hospice care to a dying butterfly is of no real significance. It doesn’t reduce the likelihood that the United States is heading toward war or a constitutional crisis, or that we are losing our reproductive rights at the hands of those who read The Handmaid’s Tale as a how-to guide. This won’t stop children being locked away in detention centers. It doesn’t even do anything to protect the 1 million-some plant and animal species facing extinction.
There’s every chance that it won’t even have helped a new generation of monarch butterflies to come into being. I have no idea if Mona actually laid eggs, and if so if those eggs will hatch, and so on. I just don’t know. I don’t know much.
I don’t even know if I did Mona any good, keeping her inside in a mesh habitat, feeding her watermelon for three days instead of letting her be eaten by birds out on my front path.
But I can say for sure that this strangely emotional journey did something for me. With so much uncertainty in this world — so much dread and fear, so much horror and trauma — sharing communal empathy for a dying butterfly felt like a lot. It was hopeless from the start but it gave me hope.
Arin Greenwood is a writer, animal advocate, and former lawyer living in St. Petersburg, Florida, with her husband Ray and their four rescue pets (Murray the dog, and cats Elf, Jack, and Chappy — they are all really cute). Arin’s novel Your Robot Dog Will Die was published by Soho Teen in 2018. Find her on Facebook and Twitter — get in touch at aringreenwood@gmail.com.
If you enjoyed reading this, you might enjoy Suzannah Gail Collins’s “How I Was Seduced by Monarchs.”
Categories: Living, Sister Sirens
The Gloria Sirens 
I like you story 🙂
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Thank you for sharing your story. I too have just recently had my own life changing experience, with Alona. A monarch that we found lifeless on the shores of White Fish Bay in Northern Ontario. I simply could not leave her there. I had to bring her to higher ground and shield her from the elements as best I could. I was so committed to caring for her. I would hold her close to my heart and whisper to her, and I know that may sound ridiculous but I was compelled to. This beautiful creature had already experienced so much in her little life I couldn’t imagine leaving her to live the last few moments alone on the shores. After a difficult hike across rivers and cliffs and climbing down through ridges, one handed as I did not want to harm Alona, I managed to bring her to higher ground. When we reached the top and I felt the warmth of the sun on my face as I closed my eyes, I felt her begin to flutter in my had. I opened them to find her moving about with excitement. I found a patch of wild flowers to rest her on and watched with both joy and sadness as our time together had come to an end.
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Your actions ARE of great significance. It is your act of kindness and compassion that is the lesson learned. You might have just touched a child who read this and will go on to great things in life…
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thank you for your story of your Mona. I found a sweet little Butterfly this Morning on the sidewalk outside of my work…i helped it get onto a plant leaf and tried to give it some sugar water., but it didn’t seem interested ..it still seems alive and I have checked on it several times already this morning. I don’t know if it will survive the day- but I feel better for having tried to help it. Thank you for sharing your story of Mona.
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Arin, this was so incredibly beautiful. For me, it exemplifies what Saint Teresa of Calcutta said, “Don’t look for big things, just do small things with great love.” You may think you have done a small thing here, but anything done with such great love can move mountains. Imagine–if everyone performed just one act of great love a week, I know we could change the world simply by the outpouring of love in the world. Love is contagious–it’s the only thing that grows when shared. And not only did you share love with Mona, you shared love with all those who followed you, and now with those who are reading this blog. Such acts of love–whether we read about them or experience them–change hearts, and changing hearts changes the world. I truly believe everything wrong with the world today stems from a lack of love. Everything bad we see happening right now comes from fear and anger, the need to control, the need to punish. These are all the exact opposite of love, and what you did for Mona is the definition of love–you were patient, kind, selfless, trusting, honest, hopeful, and persevering, and you did something absolutely beautiful for no reason other than love. As you might be able to tell, I’m Catholic, and in our faith the butterfly is a symbol of resurrection, endurance, change, hope, and life. What you have done here holds so very much meaning for me, I can barely express it in words. Thank you so much for sharing your experience. I’m working on my church’s vacation bible school stuff right now, and your story has just put me in the best mind frame. Love, love, love. It is always the answer.
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this is wholesome!
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I loved this, Arin.
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I really appreciate all you did for your little friend Mona. I recently too found a monarch buttefly that we named Tulip. Everything you did from taking her in, to buying her a little habitat, to feeding her is what we have been doing. I actually laughed reading this because our stories are so similar. As of right now Tulip has survived with us 3 weeks and 1 day. Not sure how long she will continue to survive with us. But her little tiny life will not be in vain, it has shown and given me a new appreciation of the beauty of all life has to offer.
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Thank you for this!
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This happened to me today, except with a cabbage white butterfly. It was missing 2 legs and had rips in its wings. I saved it 2 days ago and it died today.
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Oh my gosh. This brought tears. Each life, no matter how small or insignificant to some people they may be, is a precious gift from God. Thank you so much for caring for and giving love to this special little being. You are truly a blessing!
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That’s amazing I have a butterfly too she’s by my bed in a mesh habitat i feed her oranges and watermelon and I named her Penelope after the video
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I found your story while doing a search for a monarch that is acting the same way as Mona in my garden. I’ve moved her to multiple flowers ( she can not fly ) but doesn’t seem to be interested.
I too am struggling with bringing her in or letting nature take its course.
I very much enjoyed your inspirational story . Thank you
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Thank you for posting this. I’ve been trying to help one myself that keeps going in circles. It only flies once in awhile and doesn’t get far. It is eating watermelon and it sometimes has seizures. It’s sad to watch. Today she isn’t doing much and I’m hoping she doesn’t die. I know she will eventually and I will take her outside. I’ve grown so attached is crazy right. Lol.. Sometimes God’s gifts don’t last long but the memory lasts forever and warms the soul.
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I saved a Male monarch today and he likes to be by me i have not named him yet but i think i want to call him king
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This was beautiful to read. I, myself, am currently tending to the care of an injured monarch butterfly. I’ve had her for two days so far and each day she seems to do better at flying (looks like her left wing is injured at the base).
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I just found a male monarch in the park today and brought him home in a shoebox. Having the same dilemmas you wrote about. He does not look injured but cannot fly. Not sure if he is dying.
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I’m in the same boat as you and other commenters here, taking care of a sweet docile girl I’ve named Sheila who is more content to stay on my hand than fly away despite being able-bodied as far as I can tell. I found her in underneath the leaves this week as I was taking out the trash, almost stepped on her! I thought she wouldn’t make it more than an hour in her state, but she came around and she’s been alert for two days, just won’t leave despite my efforts to take her outside in the sun. 😅 Your post really resonated with me and I feel similarly. I can’t fix the world that I’ve been stressing over, but I’ve got this delicate little thing that I can help. And maybe I won’t succeed. But she doesn’t seem to mind me. And she’s definitely articulated her head like she was watching me! I noticed the same!
Anyway, thanks. I’m also very attached to my butterfly within a few days time. I hope I’m doing the best by her and I’ve given her several chances to leave, which she doesn’t take. She might die with me, she might fly away during my next attempt, but she was loved while she was here! Your post made me feel a lot less silly!
(The part I haven’t told my friends: I’ve wanted to catch a monarch since I was a little kid, never did. I caught so many others, but never a monarch. The summer after my grandfather died (who I usually spent my summers with), they were EVERYWHERE. I felt sort of comforted by that and just watched them, wondering if he was saying goodbye like the stories of people finding pennies everywhere after a loved one’s death. That was fifteen years ago. My cat recently died, a rescue who needed a lot of TLC and loved me like no other. A month later, I find this monarch in need of TLC who refuses to leave. I’m not a person of faith, but… hey, sometimes things work out weird. Maybe it’s my cat’s turn to say goodbye. :-))
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Anon back with an update. The day after I posted this, Sheila was eating and cleaning herself, and she was much more “flappy” and energetic. I wasn’t worried about her anymore. I took her outside again, and this time, she flew right off! I hope she makes it the rest of the way! 😊
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I love what you shared about your Monarch’s characteristics, Sweet & Docile…
I also had a little girl with those characteristics, and I just released her yesterday. I was hesitant, because I want to know she will be able to fend for herself. 🙂
As a caterpillar, she did everything slower than her siblings… She grew slower, shed-mode longer (at least two days) and hatched from her chrysalis after her siblings flew away.
She was still ”docile” after 2 1/2 days, but we took her to a Sunflower field since the weather would get cooler in a couple days. The sun was warm and she ate the sunflower we put her on. 🙂 … Eventually, she did fly to another flower, and held on to it’s petals… I got near her, and she flew to another sunflower and seemed to enjoy the sunshine instead of eating 🙂
She then flew to other sunflowers and disappeared… I looked and called to her, while I watched other Monarchs popping up from the flowers, but no sightings.
The sun started to go down, and I made mention we were leaving…. But as we turned to walk away, my husband saw, on a sunflower at eye level… There she was! ….Wow!!
She is identifiable because she is little and petite and docile, and her color on one wing is slightly faded.
Anyway, he picked her up and she didn’t try to move. Then he put her back on the sunflower. I picked her up, and she didn’t go anywhere, so I put her back in the net for the night.
The next morning, I fed her, and she seemed a bit more interested in getting out of the net.
…So we found some zinnias, and I placed her on one.
In a short time, she flew up to a big tree and landed….out of my reach. And as I wasn’t looking, she must have flown again, because we did not see any signs of her at that point. There were other Monarchs passing through the same yard, so I hope she could make friends and be street-ready… So instead of her being a Country girl, it seems she is a ”City girl”. Lol
I just couldn’t believe she came back to us after being out on her own for about 1 1/2 hours!! 😁
I always hope too, like you, that I am doing the best for each Monarch, and in this case of letting me pick her up again and again, it makes me wonder if I should have kept her…. but she was starting to show signs of wanting to go, so I followed accordingly.
I miss the little docile girl that let me hold her, but I also pray that she has nutrition and friends to be with. 🙂
Very Sincerely,
Charlotte 🙂
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im not crying, your crying
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I appreciate your sweet story about your friend, Mona. I relate as I have just watched my special friend, Persistence, slowly die after caring for her for 3 and a half weeks! I found her as an adult! She was in the pool filter after a rare storm here in San Diego, CA. I wrote a story about her in my blog on my site SacredDiscoveries.com. My heart is forever changed by this gentle spirit. Please check it out Butterfly Lovers. I know you will understand my deep desire to look after this beautiful girl.
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Thank you for this. My husband noticed a butterfly stuck in a puddle tonight and I saw that he was still desperately trying to get free a couple hours later, so I carefully got him onto a stick and brought him to dry land. Then I saw that it’s supposed to storm more later, so I brought him inside our screened-in porch. Thanks to your post (which feels like I could have written!), he’s now resting on a paper plate with those water-soaked cotton balls you talked about and some sugar water (we need to go to the store for some fruit!). My husband’s angry with me now for waking him up to ask what I should do, haha (even though he had literally told me to wake him up after a couple hours, which it had been! He’ll get over it.) I’m glad to know other people get it and feel this way.
I refuse to name my butterfly friend though. I already know I’m going to sob when he’s through.
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I too have found a butterfly that is very still doesn’t seem that anything is wrong with him but he just sits there and barely crawles onto my hand so im trying to feed him and care for him the best I can. He is so beautiful but seems almost out of life. I don’t want to let him get eaten by a bird because he is so pretty an seems very friendly. Im glad I found your story cause it touched my heart and im also gonna try to care for him as long as he has left.
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Thank you for this article. I just found a swallowtail clinging to life about 30 minutes ago in our gravel road at our boat yard while pottying the dog. I went and picked her up and didn’t know what to do. She could still move one leg and was trying to walk, her wings undamaged. She had suffered a major injury to her lower body and I just couldn’t leave her in the road to die. I held her in my hands guarding her from the remaining wind from Elsa (I live in NC). I walked her around for a bit wondering what to do. I finally walked her to the edge of our property by a tree line so she could rest out of the wind and take her last breaths. I placed her between some tall weeds on a root of a large tree in the shade. My dog then slowly walked up to her and sniffed her gently. I wonder if animals are aware of life and death. I wanted to google what to do incase I did something wrong, that’s how I found this article.
It’s so hard to be human sometimes. I wish I didn’t care so much about all the life around me but I do. Nature is beautiful, I hope one day I can be at peace with knowing everything that lives must die. I’m just grateful God made the natural world around us so beautiful so we can enjoy it. while it’s still here.
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Right now on Day 5 attending to a broken wing (looks melted) Papilio Macheon. Kept in an old glass coffee pot with scented flowers. Still strong. Fluttered like it wants to fly; but can’t.
Feeding it was a wonder to me.
I don’t know how this ends.
But I don’t regret keeping it from becoming easy prey or toy for some other creature.
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Arin, I have a little male(I think) yellow butterfly in my garden. He has been visiting for about 2-3 wks. I am crying now, after reading about Mona. I think he is at the end of his happy life visiting me all day. It’s time to let him go. Thank you!
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I’m doing the very same thing with what appears to be a male. I’m searching for how to and if I should care for him. He has an injured leg and a torn wing. 🥺
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Hi. I’m not sure if this would work for you, but I fed the monarch we rescued a mixture of dissolved sugar in water (10 parts water to 1 part sugar). I put it in a clean milk jug cap and put it next to the monarch. Once she tasted it, she started drinking it quickly. She got to the point that I would just hold the cap for her while she drank. I hope this helps.
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I loved the story about Mona plus everyone else’s story. I have a similar one. I found an injured female monarch on Labor Day, 9/6. She had a deformed right hind wing and an injured left wing. My husband picked her up out of the grass because she appeared stuck. I made her some nectar and fed it to her out of a milk jug cap. We didn’t name her or bring her inside our home because she seemed scared to be in a cardboard box, but I have been feeding her twice a day since finding her. The amazing thing is after I fed her on Tuesday afternoon she walked and flapped towards me then crawled up on my hand. She then became friends with my husband and my son and would crawl on our fingers to be held and drink nectar while we held her. Every day we would check on her and feed her. Yesterday, she appeared to be more dehydrated and her colors weren’t as vibrant. I fed her and then put her in a flowering plant for protection. Today, our sweet butterfly passed away. We will miss her greatly but are blessed to have had her in our lives since Monday.
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Thank you for your article. It helped me today. Your article came up on a google search when I spotted a lethargic monarch in my lawn. I placed a stem of sedum near it. After an hour it climbed on. I lifted the stem with the monarch on and gently moved it to my garden with the rest of the sedum. I thought about you and your Mona the entire time. Thank you for your words and touching another monarch in this world. Maybe it will die here or maybe it will move in but you connected in an amazing way between humans and species. Awesome. I remain grateful to you.
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Thank you for sharing your story!! I am currently in the same position with a male monarch that cannot fly or walk. 😢 Your beautiful experience made me feel like caring for this little guy is so worth it!!
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Thank you.
I just found a monarch stuck under a car windshield wiper, seemingly uninjured but one wing slightly bent.
I looked up ‘how to care for injured monarch’ and your story popped up.
Deeply touching and heart warming.
I’ve now set my ‘Mona’ up with a habitat based on your information.
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15 days in caring for an injured Monarch! He isn’t eating much for the past day or so, but this has been such an incredible experience. Thank you for sharing ❤️
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