Sunday, August 04, 2019

Monarch butterfly eggs hatching!


I am monitoring my milkweed plants looking for signs of newly hatched eggs. a hole in a leaf might indicate that an egg has hatched and a tiny caterpillar might be feeding there! YES, I found such a holey condition on two leaves this morning and I found two very, very small caterpillars nearby the hole in the leaves. I would approximate their body length to be about 1/8 inch in length. Apparently they will remain in this, their caterpillar stage for about two weeks, munching on milkweed leaves until they have fattened up and they become much larger, getting ready for their chrysalis stage. I do hope they survive and I can keep track of them! In the picture below you can see from where the Monarch's egg hatched. You can see the tiny caterpillar and also the hole from which it hatched from to the left of the caterpillar.
Just imagine that this winter this tiny caterpillar may be an adult Monarch butterfly wintering in Mexico!! Isn't nature fascinating! Lets all do our share in protecting Milkweed patches!

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