I've been growing a bed of milkweed plants, with the hopes of attracting Monarch butterflies and their caterpillars. I week ago, I had given up all hope and planned to cut down the milkweed, as the plants were tall and quite ugly, and didn't have any monarch caterpillars. I started to remove the plants Tuesday, but after I took down two, I realized there were caterpillars on them, most at the 2nd instar stage, but one near or at the 4th instar. After removing the caterpillars to untouched milkweeds, I counted 7 more caterpillars that I am happy to say are feasting on the 11 remaining milkweed plants.
Here are two photos of the caterpillars. The first one is of a 2nd instar caterpillar (ca. 1 cm length), and the second is of a 4th instar at around 3+ cm. (Sorry for the OOF areas, but caterpillars and plants were moving at the time.)
Bob
