I’m so excited to tell you that we are now finding Monarch butterfly eggs and caterpillars on our milkweed plants! 🙂 Each year for several years now, I try to help the endangered Monarch caterpillars survive until they turn into butterflies and then I release them back into the wild. It’s sooo interesting and fun! Monarch caterpillars will only eat the milkweed plant, so that is where you will find their eggs and caterpillars. They are just now starting to show up here in our part of Ohio. I currently have 14 teeny tiny caterpillars and they can be pretty sneaky and a bit hard to keep track of since they are so tiny! Here’s a close-up picture of one…notice how small it is in comparison to my thumb and finger.
Now let’s test out your powers of observation. Can you find 4 caterpillars in this picture?
There is one caterpillar on each piece of the milkweed leaves. In case you are having trouble seeing them, here’s a bigger picture.
I bet you found them all now! 🙂 Can you believe how small they are?? Wow! Remember that I said they can be sneaky little guys? Look at this guy I caught escaping from his “hotel”!
Luckily I saw him before he got any farther and I offered him a fresh piece of milkweed and he decided he liked that and crawled aboard. I put him safely back in his hotel. 😉
Stay tuned for more Monarch caterpillar updates coming soon! 🙂
The Kids Niche 