The Monarch's Last Crawl

Every September, researchers at the University of Kansas tag thousands of monarch butterflies migrating through the Great Plains. Dr. Orley "Chip" Taylor has led this effort since 1992, and he never tires of one particular fact: inside the chrysalis, the caterpillar doesn't simply sprout wings. It dissolves. Nearly every cell breaks down into a biological soup — an unrecognizable mess of proteins and lipid chains.…