Solved-Monarch catepillar chowing down on Milkweed

[CHARLIE]

[Den Socling]

I do believe it is a Monarch caterpiller loading up with toxins on a milkweed.

[CHARLIE]

Congratulations Den! You win an all expense paid vacation to Baghdad, Iraq.  Your ticket can be picked up at your closest Marine Recruiter. ;D

This milkweed plant started growing next to our driveway about 4 or 5 years ago.  It is right in our landscaping and several times people have "done us a favor" by recognizing it is a weed and pulling it up.  It always grows back but when they....."do us a favor"......they destroy the reason we let it grow there.  You see, milkweed is the favorite food for the caterpillar that turns into a Monarch Butterfly. We enjoy watching them grow from a tiny speck on the leaf into a black and yellow caterpillar. They really eat a lot of the milkweed and have voracious appetites. I was lucky this year because the man that did our landscaping last year stopped by to check the plants after the winter. He was just about to "do us a favor" and pull out that weed for us.  I stopped him and explained why we leave it and that there are 5 or more Monarch caterpillars on it.  After the caterpillars turn into butterflies, we cut down the milkweed. It'll grow again next year. It's fun and our only problem is people that "do us a favor" and pull it up.  It has two large stems, I just took a picture of one.  You can see one of the caterpillars on the leaf of the plant. I also took a close-up of it so you can see what it looks like.      

[Furby]

Why don't you put a sign by it? :

[CHARLIE]

We finally did put a sign out by the plant but apparantly the landscaper doesn't read..... he was still going to help us out and pull up that weed. ;D

[Den Socling]

And since the Monarch caterpillers eat Milkweed, they are full of acidic latex that makes the adult butterfly taste awful to predators.

Another strange fact: they migrate but reproduce and die along the way. The Monarchs that you see returning are two or three generations removed from the buterflies that you saw leaving.

[Norm]

A few years back in the fall we had one tree (soft maple) that was covered with monarch butterflies in the evenings and mornings. As the day warmed up there would be less and less until the next evening when there would be thousands again. This lasted for about a week until they migrated off.