Meddling with Monarchs

On October 6, just prior to a predicted frost, I found three large monarch larvae feeding on an annual milkweed plant in my garden.  I had planted Asclepias curassavica, known by various common names such as silkweed or blood flower and for its reputation as a good provider of pollen and nectar, to attract bees.  Of course!  But could this be an unintended consequence?  I brought the caterpillars inside on some sprigs of the plant.  On October 7, the day of a predicted freeze, I found three more and brought them inside also.  They made a lovely living centerpiece on my dining room table, and I made a few photos.....ok. More than a few.  Here are two.....

Two monarch larvae grazing on flowers of Asclepias curassavica.

Monarch larva eating seed capsule of milkweed plant.

On October 8, my husband and I left for a long weekend.  Just before we left, I found one of the larvae floating in the water that was sustaining the milkweed fronds.  Luckily, the unfortunate tumble hadn't happened too long before I found the critter because after a bit of a paper toweling off, complete with a few body pumpings a la CPR,  the caterpillar started moving.  Back to the flowers it went.  Coming home on Monday, October 10, we found some surprises, as our dog/house sitter wrote in a note.  Five of the caterpillars, including the one that had been swimming,  had formed chrysalises, but two of them had wandered off their floral arrangements to dangle off the edge of the table.  Here they are:                                                                                             

Two chrysalises hanging from the table edge.  Notice the fine web that attaches the pupa to the table. 

The sixth caterpillar was in chrysalis on Tuesday morning.  Chrysalises are beautiful, jade green and jewel-like with delicate golden details.  Every morning I checked on them.  It didn't take long to start to see some wing elements such as veins through the skin of the pupa.  This morning, October 20, two of the chrysalises had lost their green coloration and the distinctive orange and black markings of the butterflies were visible through the now- transparent casing.  It looked like this:

Chrysalis skin has become transparent.  You can still see the gold necklace on the left.

Throughout the morning, I  monitored the pupa.  My camera was set up and ready and I made photos with and without flash.   In the early afternoon, even while someone was visiting me here, I interrupted our conversation repeatedly  to check on the progress and suddenly noticed that the back of the chrysalis had split!  And as we watched, the butterfly began to emerge, or, in proper entomology speech, eclose.  Not to keep you in suspense, here is the sequence of photos I was able to get of the emerging: 

This happened in just about the amount of time it takes to look at the photos!  Then the unfolding of the wings took much longer, with the butterfly twisting and swinging on the empty shell of its chrysalis.  In the above photos, note its proboscis all awhirl, and its very bulbous abdomen.  In a while, it jettisoned quite a bit of liquid, the waste product of its miraculous metamorphosis, now on the floor.  

Here are two more photos of wing-drying:  

And one more photograph before I put the butterfly in a temporary enclosure with his newly emerged sibling.  There seems to be a spot on the hind wing just visible in this photograph that is the telltale mark of a male.  Also visible is the yet-remaining chrysalis on the table edge.

If there is more, the butterflies alone will know.  But there is a prequel.  I made the following photograph on September 19.  The adult Monarch is on the same group of flowers where I found the larvae a little more than two weeks later.  Could they be her offspring?  And if so, was there something about this yet-blooming, non-native milkweed that inspired the butterfly to breed at the late date?  Did she then migrate?  Otherwise, why did she lay the eggs instead of migrating?  I will try to find out whether this plant selected for bees somehow meddled with the Monarchs, well, like I did too.