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| There is a lot of activity on milkweed plants this time of year. I wrote a blog about some of the members of the milkweed community in October of 2011. You can see that blog by clicking here. |
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| Today I saw this late instar monarch caterpillar. Its head is on the right. It was eating voraciously, bulking up for its pupal stage, which will come soon. It will pupate for about two weeks and then emerge as a butterfly to begin its long migration south. Click to enlarge. |
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| The plants were covered with oleander aphids like this one. |
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| A few of the aphids had wings. There is one in the upper right of this photo; winged individuals can disperse to nearby stems and pods to establish new populations. Click to enlarge the photo and you will see that there is a caterpillar-like organism among the aphids. It is the larva of a syrphid fly; it will grow up to become a hover fly (also called flower fly). In its larval stage it eats aphids. No shortage of those around here. |
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| A closer look at the fly larva. It is easy to mistake for a caterpillar, or even a plant part. Stealthy! |
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| As I was clicking pictures of this cluster of milkweed bug nymphs, I got a surprising message from them -- they knew they were being watched and they did not like it. See the picture below. They all ran around to the other side. |
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| Stop looking at us! |
A really interesting thing about those Oleander Aphids is that they are quite likely all female clones of one another. Female aphids can give birth to clones of themselves without mating with a male. Then, when they need to establish a new feeding site, they create winged clones who can fly away to start a new colony on a new plant. Every once in a while, they produce a male to introduce some genetic variety.
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