These very hungry caterpillars are on a restricted diet. Yesterday morning, I was pleased to find many caterpillars feasting on my milkweed plants, their only source of nutrition. They devour the plants, which become quite bare after a while (though the leaves will grow back for future larvae, as long as the plants get some water). A couple of years ago, while I was reading Flight Behavior by Barbara Kingsolver, I became keenly interested in monarch butterflies, as the book features them prominently; at the same time, my sister-in-law, Kristine, was posting on Facebook about monarch butterflies and her milkweed plants. I was intrigued, and found plants for my garden from a local nursery and from Home Depot, and I also purchased milkweed seeds. I grow milkweed in pots now, though, because many of the plants I'd put into the earth would mysteriously disappear after a few days. I learned at the nursery that gophers were probably stealing the milkweed I planted in the ground, pulling them underground by their roots. Anyway, the hungry caterpillars start out as adorable, tiny creatures, and grow larger and plumper as they eat. They're a bit cartoonish, as if they belong in a Dr. Seuss story, but some of them will form exquisite chrysalises, and the most fortunate ones will become beautiful monarch butterflies.
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