Ellie May Melissa found another critter. This is a caterpillar she photographed in the flower beds. Click on the picture for a higher-resolution image.
Those yellow and black warnings stripes almost certainly mean this caterpillar is poisonous to birds. Warning colors – such as the black and orange of the monarch butterfly – in invertebrates announce to predators that the potential prey is poisonous. Poisonous, incidentally, means toxic when eaten. Venomous means capable of injecting toxins. Monarchs don’t manufacture toxins. In their caterpillar stage they eat milkweed and other toxic plants to which they are immune and store those toxins in their body tissues.
Caterpillars, like butterflies, try to confuse predators about the location of their head and tail, using eyespots, or – in this case – antennae-like appendages at both ends. In this picture, the head is on the left. You can tell by the presence of true feet on the left. The leg-like appendates on the right are pseudopods.
This was an easy identification. The picture in the field guide looked identical to the one Melissa took. Know what it is? Post your answer in comments.
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Pretty sure it’s the larva of the monarch butterfly. They are gorgeous.
When I lived in Wisconsin there was a field full of milkweed down the block and I collected a jar full of the larva and watch them cocoon and hatch.
Pretty cool.
We have a winner! It’s the caterpillar of the monarch butterfly. They really are beautiful.
For being the first to identify the caterpillar, Chris gets our praise and admiration. So go on. Start admiring him.
thats definatly a monarch caterpillar
Hi, I found your site when you posted to MOCCW. Last Summer I found a “Hickory Horned Devil”. I didn’t know what it was and some people misidentified it as a Monarch Butterfly. Now, I can see why. A link to pictures of a Hickory Horned Devil follow:
http://www.ces.ncsu.edu/chatham/ag/SustAg/farmphotojuly1805.html
I found 4 of these on one of my dill plants today. They are eating the dill, but since they are going to be Monarchs, I’ll share it with them!
I saw their parents on my butterfly bushes the last two weeks, so when the caterpillars ate all my parsley, but as BeeKay said, I don’t mind sharing since they will be monarchs.