Monarch Caterpillars

Some milkweed came up in my front flowerbed. It is not the best looking plant around and my husband was lobbying to dig the plants out. I asked him to wait until I got out to photograph them since they were just getting ready to bloom.

Some of the leaves has been partially eaten…and I took a closer look. Sure enough – on the underside of the leave was a monarch caterpillar! The elementary schools in our area raised caterpillars in their third grade classrooms this year – and one of the resulting monarchs must have found its way to our milkweed. That clinched the decision to not dig out the plants at all.

Later I found another smaller caterpillar ---- and then I haven’t found them again in the past few days. Usually they are obvious as they get large because of the amount of the milkweed foliage they eat. Their food generally makes them unpalatable to predators but maybe something else has caused them a problem. We are still leaving the plants for other monarchs that reach our area….something we can do to help the population of Monarchs to increase.