My wife discovered these guys devouring the asclepias that she planted in our front flower beds. She didn't know that asclepias is actually the family of the milkweed plant. I immediately identifed the little critters as monarch butterfly caterpillars.
We decided to pluck them from the plant and place them along with several milkweed stalks in an old glass terrarium, in order to spare them from Mom's terrible bug spray wrath. We found 5 caterpillars, three large and two about 1/2 inch long. My six year old has already named the three largest - Charlie, Hungry, and Crawls. She also informed us matter-of-factly that it is a sin to kill God's creatures.
According to monarchwatch.org, these large caterpillars are almost ready to molt for the last time and transform into pupae. We'll set up the terrarium with branches for the pupae and I'll keep the blog updated with their progress.
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