do monarch caterpillars eat butterfly weed

I’m in KS I think this is what the hundred+ were that were eating my milkweed. Thank you for your website to help identify them. Queen butterflies will also use milkweed as hosts. !I am in Stillwater MN and have found many milkweed Tussock on my orange butterfly bushes.

Anyone know what this might be? Tussock moth caterpillars denude trees and bushes as well as milkweed. I live in northern Vermont and do not recall seeing it before.Have let lots of milkweed grow over the years in central Vermont and get a crop of tussock caterpillars every Fall. If left a day or two, i see they are gone and big holes in leaves next time. They gave me the creeps. Although a few milkweed species can colonize disturbed areas, milkweeds are not listed as noxious weeds in any state or at the federal level. Photo by Monika MaecklePerhaps even more handsome is the fluffy Milkweed Tussock Moth caterpillar, This Tussock moth caterpillar was spotted in Glen Rose, Texas in 2007 walking across a hiking trail in a wooded area. The purpose of this stage of their life is to consume as much as they can, because they get the majority of their lifelong protein that they’ll use for the rest of their larval stage and their adult lives, too.Most people seem to know that monarch butterflies are toxic to predators (which is why some other butterfly species mimic monarchs), but do you know how they become toxic? More than any other, the caterpillars of Monarch butterflies are most closely associated with eating milkweed–anything in the Asclepias family.

But there’s a at least three other caterpillars that eat milkweed for breakfast, lunch and dinner.Last week I noticed this fellow noshing on a pot of Swamp milkweed, Here’s a better picture of the caterpillar, via Molly Jacobson.That ain’t no Monarch. Los Angeles reader Millicent Stoller wrote to our SoCal Garden Clinic saying she was trying to plant for monarch butterflies. Monarch butterfly caterpillar on milkweed, its host plant. The only Monarchs I’ve seen yet are the ones I released a few days ago. They’re adorable! I’m in Minneapolis, MN. So, monarchs in Generation 1 are the offspring of the ones that overwintered, Generation 2 monarchs are the grandchildren of the overwintering butterflies, and Generations 3 and 4 are the great- and the great great- grandchildren of the butterflies which overwintered. It’s a Striped garden caterpillar. This year we have more than we’ve had in years.We went out citizen scientist-ing today, looking for milkweed and evidence of monarch butterflies and/or eggs and caterpillars here in Rosemount, MN. So we came home armed with lots of photos and started searching the internet. They are really stripping the milkweed in our lawn. When my neighbor brushed their backs with her finger, she said later her finger was a tad numb We figured that might be their defense against ants and the like.Thanks for this bit of information.

If you are going to find monarch butterfly eggs, you have to first find milkweed. It has what I am pretty sure are Cyncia moth larvae on it. This year I have seen the caterpillars. Not knowing what they were, I decided to cut off the stems and toss them onto our burn pile. Photo by Kip KiphartJudging from conversations with folks who work and play a lot with milkweed raising caterpillars and butterflies, these other milkweed eaters are not all that common.Have you seen any of these other milkweed feeders? We have so many milkweed in the area, I’m sure there’s enough for both the Monarch and Tussock.I live in Southern NJ, 15 mins from Phila, and just found at least 50 of the Tussock moth caterpillars on my milkweed, but no Monarchs. With their distinctive black, white and gold pin-striped suits and expressive dark tentacles reaching out into the universe, that’s no surprise. Sure hope the scarcity doesn’t become the norm. Thank you for helping me identify them. Therefore, I encourage you to consider leaving these plants in your yard or on your land so that you can provide this vital food source to our monarch butterflies.

Milkweed is most often thought of as the home and food source of monarch butterfly larvae. Cute little things but not the monarchs I wanted.We found a tussock caterpillar in Northern Ohio. Wagner’s description of the interesting larvae: “densely hairy caterpillar with numerous black, orange (or yellow) and white tufts and lashes.” Yes, “lashes.”That’s what these hairy protrusions look like–almost colorful bristles on a soft toothbrush extending from the caterpillars body. “Nobody had any idea what it was. Very light yellow with a black dot on one end. This week my milkweed is being difoilyaited by “T” Caterpillar. They have stripes like the Monarch, but the bottom of them are orange. Thanks for pointing it out.