My Family Jewels....

[Mikey]

This Monarch cat is the larger of the two that are feeding on this milkweed.  I suspect as they get larger they will strip most, if not all, the leaves off....  I've not as yet noticed them on my other milkweeds.


I've noticed these bugs all gathered together on one of my ....uh...err.....pods of my Family Jewels plant.  They seem to group together in the morning hours when it's cool and spread out over the milkweed as it warms up.  I've seen them crawling all over this milkweed as well as my other variety of milkweeds and a few other plants.  My bug book IDs them as the "Large Milkweed Bug".  Since they reportedly aren't that harmful to plants, I'll just leave them be.

[Teresa]

Sorry, but the 'bugs on the jewels' pic just looks, um, how shall I say this, nasty.

That's a nice fat caterpillar tho and you'll have a lovely flutterby when it finishes stripping the leaves off that plant!