The Hungry, Hungry Caterpillar

Late last week, I was elated to discover monarch caterpillars on the milkweed plants at the edge of our yard. I've been cultivating those plants for the past few years, and watching for monarch caterpillars. Milkweeds are one of their primary food sources.

If you really want to encourage butterflies to come and hang out in your yard, you need to provide host plants for the caterpillars and nectar plants for the butterflies (let's consider this blip bait, fellow blipsters!). To learn more about butterfly gardening, visit The Butterfly Site at http://www.thebutterflysite.com/gardening.shtml.

First I found just one, and I was very happy. Then I found a second one on a nearby plant: TWO caterpillars, hooray! A caterpillar will eat itself silly, then form a chrysalis, then turn into a butterfly and fly away! What a life of magic, mystery, and adventure!

To learn more about the life cycle of the monarch butterfly, visit the Monarch Butterfly Website at http://www.monarch-butterfly.com/ or Monarch Butterfly USA at http://www.monarchbutterflyusa.com/Cycle.htm.

The morning after I took this photo, I checked and found that the plant this caterpillar had been sitting on for the photo was entirely decimated! Not a leaf remained. Now that is one hungry caterpillar!