Stacy posted a comment to Saturday’s entry that brought up too many good points and questions for a simple response. If you missed it, here’s the comment:
Dang, M&Ms! Sorry you missed the birth/emergence but better luck next time. Take good care of your host plants — only milkweed for Monarch’s, right? — and you should have lots more caterpillars and chrysalis to watch over. Once, I had three from one big and healthy milkweed plant from Miraposa.
By the way, how do you tell a Monarch from a Queen butterfly? I can only tell them apart as caterpillars — the Queen has ‘horns’. I think. The chrysalis look exactly the same to me. The butterflies are also very similar…
Stacy’s right about monarchs and milkweed – monarch caterpillars will only eat milkweed. I picked up a plant from Home Depot for $3.49, and there are four fat caterpillars living off the leaves…more on that later…
The difference between monarch and queen butterflies is slight. Queens are smaller than monarchs, but looking closely at their colors is the easiest way to make an identification. Monarchs are colored a deeper orange than queens, and their wing veins are black. Queen wing veins are chocolate brown.
Another monarch impostor is the viceroy. Viceroys can be identified by a thin black stripe that parallels the curve of each hind wing.
I enjoyed that