The Monarch’s bright orange color serves as a warning to predators that they are inedible. Monarch caterpillars feed on milkweed which contains cardiac glycosides. These are toxic to the birds causing their severe vomiting, so they avoid feeding on the Monarchs in the future. Monarchs have quite a short life cycle, so they develop several generations per year. This means that not a single butterfly lives long enough to come back to the starting point. Yet, year after year they unmistakably follow their migratory routes. Their incredible navigation skills are genetic, and generations of scientists have studied them for decades trying to understand the mechanisms that control the behavior of the Monarch butterflies.
The vector has been created by tracing a detailed picture of the butterfly. It is symmetrical, as you can see, and the colors are represented quite faithfully.
