Regicide?

We found a couple of Monarch butterfly caterpillars recently, both just sort of trucking along far from any Asclepia plants, their chief food source, so we transferred them to the one healthy Asclepia plant in the yard.

They both happily set to chewing away on the leaves and eventually the larger of the two set off to find a place to form a chrysalis.

Looking For A Location

The site it finally selected was the underside of a rail on one of Cindy's anti-varmint panels.

Chrysalis

That was OK; it should be fine there as long as we remember it's there.

We continued to keep an eye on the second caterpillar, but today I found it wrapped up in spider web, looking dried out and dead.

Spiders Got This One

I guess the spiders have to eat, too, but I wish they would pick on the less beneficial insects and leave the pollinators, including the Monarch caterpillars, alone.

Even More Caterpillars

As we were admiring the chrysalis Caterpillar Number Two had made Wednesday morning, and encouraging Number Three to get a move on and attach so we could finally clean the wilted vegetation and accumulated frass out of the cage, we noticed, oops, another little caterpillar.  And then another one.

The Monarchs currently frolicking in the butterfly garden in the front yard must have deposited some eggs on the new Asclepia leaves we had put into the cage on Monday.  And now they've hatched.

These two are only about an inch long, so they are probably in the fourth stage, or instar.  That means they've probably got at least another week to go before they will be ready to attach and form chrysalises, so we'll need to figure out how to get even more Asclepia leaves into the cage for them to eat.

With Numero Uno's chrysalis so close to the zippered door, that makes it a very delicate operation to open the door, take out the old plant leaves and put in new ones without dislodging the chrysalis.  Number Two attached close to the zipper but not on it, and now Number Three looks like he's going to attach a little further over from the zipper.

We may try to move the first chrysalis to a branch or something.  It's currently hanging from the zipper by some of the silk from the silk button the caterpillars form to keep them attached to whatever they've chosen, so we're thinking we might be able to wind some of the silk around a branch or something.  I have no idea whether this would work, but we're going to have to do something soon to get more Asclepia leaves into the cage for the new guys.

It's amazing how much these caterpillars can eat.

The Straight Poop

When we bought the Caterpillar Castle from www.livemonarch.com, they suggested that we should clean the cage with a 5% bleach solution after each group of butterflies had used it.

"Why would we need to do that?" we wondered.

Oh.

It's called "frass."

Turns out that caterpillars do nothing but eat and poop.  All day.  Every day.

The three of them have been in their castle for a week now and it's pretty clear that it will have to be thoroughly cleaned of the frass after they hatch.

It's a good thing they don't spend any time on the floor of their cage.  Yuk.

Of course, I couldn't resist pointing out to Cindy that that's NOTHING compared with what three chickens could put out.

Chrysalis!

Monarch Butterfly Caterpillar Attached

Cindy was pruning the Bougainvillea in the front yard yesterday when she noticed a Monarch butterfly caterpillar had attached itself to one of the Bougainvillea branches and curled up as if it was going to begin forming a chrysalis.

Monarch Chrysalis

We watched it and a couple of other caterpillars for about half an hour.  One of the other caterpillars was chugging purposefully along one of the branches and the other had curled up under one of the wrought iron curlicues on the fence beside the Bougainvillea, so we thought there was a possibility that they might also be ready to start forming a chrysalis, but they had not attached themselves to anything.

We went in to lunch for about an hour and when we came back out, the first caterpillar had already completed its chrysalis.  We were astonished at how much it resembled a leaf; I'm sure that's its best protection when it's completely immobile in the chrysalis.

Our friend Mari, who also has Asclepia plants and harbors Monarch caterpillars, says it usually takes about a week for the butterflies to hatch out, so we'll keep watching this one.

What's This One Doing?

In the meantime, we completely lost sight of the one that was heading along the branch, but the other one is still on the fence as of today.  We don't know if he's getting ready to attach, or is just confused, but we'll keep an eye on that one, too.