Eclectic Echoes

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Life is hard, but beautiful. Like all monarchs this little caterpillar will need to go through 5 instars then pupate before it can emerge as an adult and migrate south early this October. All along the way many predators will eat it if they discover the caterpillar. The compounds in milkweeds do help, but they are not a complete protection against all predators.

We watched the mother lay her egg on a butterfly weed plant in our garden. A few days later the egg was gone, along with a sizable chunk of leaf. Looking around carefully I found the caterpillar under another leaf on the plant.

Unfortunately we have not seen the caterpillar since. We are thankful that the the mother felt our garden was good enough, especially considering where it started from and all the work we’ve put into it. The garden was designed for the birds (lower garden) and butterflies (upper garden) and I think having a butterfly mother lay an egg in the upper garden was a mark of success. Hopefully, if we are here next year we will be able to report a successful egg to adult life-cycle from within the garden.

Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Arthropoda
Class: Insecta
Order: Lepidoptera
Suborder: Macrolepidoptera
Family: Danaidae
Genus: Danaus
Species: Danaus plexippus