Caterpillar Transfer

 

Have you ever had to perform an emergency caterpillar evacuation? This monarch butterfly caterpillar is relaxing in its new emergency quarters after being carried across the yard to this host plant.

The plant is an attractive low bushy kind of milkweed called butterfly weed or orange milkweed. In summer it's covered with orange flowers. Now it has pointy seed pods. I grew this from seeds and got it started in the yard a few years ago.

I wanted more of this milkweed, so this spring I planted it in another spot in the yard. The plants were puny, though, so I temporarily filled in around with marigolds. The milkweed did great. It flowered and got bushy. I never got the chance to take a picture of it because, suddenly a few days ago -- this. Do you see the bare stem sticking out of the marigolds? That's one of the new milkweed plants, completely defoliated!

What happened? Just enlarge this photo and count all of the munching monarch caterpillars. I think I see six of them.

Consider the area to the right of the caterpillar, full of fresh delicious milkweed leaves. And to the left, just naked stems. There were hardly any leaves left on this plant. The caterpillars were eating a dwindling supply and getting perilously close to stranding themselves in a sea of unpalatable marigold foliage, which they cannot eat.

So -- they all got carefully carried to the big bush on the other side of the yard where there is adequate food for them to finish their voracious eating stages. It was a long journey in caterpillar miles. Each of them curled up for the trip.

And each of them uncurled and stretched after a few moments in their new digs and recommenced eating. I've transferred eight of them so far. I''m looking forward to upcoming blogs about chrysalises and eclosions.

Butterfly Weed Works

This is butterfly weed, Asclepia tuberosa, a native milkweed that is a host for monarch butterflies. I raised some from seeds and planted the seedlings in my yard to see if I could attract monarchs. Click to enlarge.

A monarch like this one (on another kind of milkweed in this photo) found my small stand of butterfly weed and laid eggs on it. Yay!

They grew like crazy, eating leaf after leaf. Here are two of them tag-teaming a leaf. But then it became clear that they were eating at such a pace that they would soon run out. I think I'll have a bigger supply next year after the plants spread, but this year I'm limited.

So I gathered them up with some leaves for the trip and took them to a spot I know where there is a lot of milkweed. Did I mention there are 7 caterpillars? Can you spot them all?

Here's where I took them -- a big butterfly garden with lots of common milkweed to eat.

Here they are spreading out in their new digs.

Seven more of these coming soon.

Busy Milkweed

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. 

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.

The plants were covered with oleander aphids like this one. 

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. 

A closer look at the fly larva. It is easy to mistake for a caterpillar, or even a plant part. Stealthy! 

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. 

Stop looking at us!