Date: 07/25/2008

Number: 1

Recently we reported at Monarch LARVA - first sighted that we found our first monarch larva of the year and that larva was dead. Now we may have a culprit for the death. Yesterday we noticed a milkweed leaf rolled into a tube and sealed on both ends. We opened the rolled leaf to find a large wolf spider carrying an egg sac much larger than the spider's abdomen. We let the spider be. Today we again opened the same rolled leaf to make digital images of the spider and her even more enlarged egg sac. Then nearby we found a similar leaf with hundreds of tiny spiders emerging where the rolled leaf separated at the long margin. Images of those spiders too.

We had not previously thought of spiders as predators of caterpillars, but we now propose that the dead monarch caterpillar had served as prey to one of the wolf spiders. We doubt that the monarch larva died of some disease as initially assumed. We will continue to observe the spiders and any monarch larvae each day.

Thorndike, ME

Latitude: 44.6 Longitude: -69.2

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