Date: 08/27/2014

Number: 1

Most of our common milkweed, Butterfly Weed and Purple Milkweed plants are either dried up or very tough and unpalatable looking. Suddenly, the more recent, fresh, Swamp Milkweed plants have a delightful...or perhaps overwhelming plethora of Monarch caterpillars! A friend begged me to collect some from her one plant before ALL the leaves were gone. I have only one paltry Swamp Milkweed available, but I took 3. I also found some sprouted offshoots from some Common Milkweed at our local nature center and took another 6 over to their plants. My friend's Swamp Milkweed was large (about 4' tall with 15-20 shoots). It now has about 6 leaves and at least 2-dozen caterpillars of various sizes. Will they be able to develop by eating the stems? Should I transfer more caterpillars to what appear to be less palatable milkweeds? Has this happened because the adult females are not finding enough plants and are unloading on whatever they can find...or is this a common phenomenon? Others in this area are telling me of similar "crowded conditions" on their Swamp Milkweed!

Joplin, MO

Latitude: 37.1 Longitude: -94.5

Observed by: Valerie
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