Monarch Butterflies Love Our Asclepias tuberosa (Butterfly weed)

We have two butterfly weed plants in our backyard and this seems to be the time of the year the monarchs are busy producing new monarchs. It seems everywhere we look we can see monarch caterpillars.

The monarch’s and the butterfly weed seem to have a symbiotic relationship.

This is to give an idea of the coloration and number of antenna of the monarch caterpillar. (Better photos are just below)

When it is time to eat, nothing stops these caterpillars.

Everything edible on the butterfly weed is devoured,

Up and down the stems they go.

The arrow points to a caterpillar. Don’t ever think it is easy to photograph these caterpillars. I was using my Sony RX100 III and between the angles and the glare on the screen from the sun, my ratio of good shots to bad was roughly 1 in 4. Disclaimer: no monarch caterpillars were harmed in the making of this blog post.

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