The Nature of Things

For the last few weeks, my garden has been home to several Monarch butterfly caterpillars . This is cause for celebration because Monarch butterflies have been so scarce in the garden this year, but, finally, as the migrants have made their way south, several of them have stopped over in my yard to deposit their eggs on my milkweed plants. The eggs that successfully hatched have resulted in hungry caterpillars which have now stripped most of the leaves from those plants. I've been on the lookout for the next stage in butterfly development, but I had not seen any evidence of it until yesterday. I found this lovely green Monarch chrysalis hanging from the back of one of my patio chairs. Now, butterfly development proceeds in a fairly mundane fashion up until the chrysalis point. The female lays the egg on the host plant - the milkweed in the case of the Monarch. A tiny caterpillar hatches after a few days and begins to devour the plant. All caterpillars are born hungry and, as they c...