Hello, and Well Met, Tiny Methuselah!

I have to admit that this may be the tiniest monarch caterpillar I've ever seen. I was coming back from my morning walk. I'd taken my camera along, hoping to get a shot of one of the hummingbird moths on a neighbor's red monarda, but none showed up for me.

I was checking on the monarch chrysalis (whom my husband insists on calling "J-boy") in our milkweed patch, when I suddenly saw this tiny creature dangling from a bit of string. I had no idea what was going on, but I presumed it to be in distress. I offered my thumb for safety, and the tiny creature dropped onto it.

At closer glance, it appeared to be a monarch caterpillar, though an itty bitty one. I snapped a few photos, then held my thumb right next to the milkweed plant it had been hanging from. It quickly walked onto a leaf and disappeared, making really good time for something so tiny.

My friend Debbi (who also has lots going on in HER butterfly world) informed me later that the first and second instar caterpillars spin a tiny safety line so they can climb back to their leaf if they fall off. Isn't that amazing! The caterpillar was not really in need of rescue after all, but I didn't know that at the time!

The monarch butterflies born in August are part of a very special, long-lived generation that is called the Methuselah generation. They have an especially long life span so that they may make the long trip of butterfly migration to Mexico, which is more than 2000 miles from here. A regular monarch butterfly lives two to six weeks; this final generation of monarchs can live up to eight or nine months!

Live long and prosper, little one!

My soundtrack song for this little bitty monarch caterpillar who is going to grow up and travel the world via nothing but the power of its own orange wings is this one: Dwight Yoakum, with A Thousand Miles from Nowhere.