The Twelve Caterpillars of Christmas

Actually, it was sixteen or seventeen Monarch caterpillars, all chomping away at the lone Asclepia plant in the raised beds in the back yard.  Finding them was pretty funny, because I had just given Cindy a tee-shirt for Christmas that said, "Got Milkweed?" http://www.northernsun.com/Got-Milkweed-T-Shirt-%288467%29.html.

How Many Caterpillars????

The ravenous horde of caterpillars had pretty well stripped most of the leaves off that one plant, so we decided to move most of them to the Asclepia plants in the front yard.  Today I counted eight of them on those plants, but some of the caterpillars we moved yesterday looked about big enough to trundle off and find places to attach and form their chrysalises, so they may have done that.

Not Many Leaves Left

They aren't too choosy about where they attach; we initially thought they wanted a horizontal branch or something to attach their chrysalises to, but since then we've found them on vertical surfaces as well.  This summer we had one that attached to the driveway gate post and one that was unfortunately crushed because we didn't notice it had attached to the underside of the cover of the hot tub.

I hope they all survive; the world needs more butterflies.