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Just One Photo From Today

I made a little woodland doll.
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These Monarch Butterfly caterpillars are preparing for metamorphosis. They attached by their hind “legs” and hang upside down. The caterpillars feed exclusively on milkweed.

Here’s more:

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And yellow aphids also feeding on the milkweed.
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These Monarch Butterfly caterpillars are preparing for metamorphosis. They attached by their hind “legs” and hang upside down. The caterpillars feed exclusively on milkweed.
We get them in a lot of Australia too but here they don't migrate. Not sure what their traditional diet would have been here but I know from experience that they love cabbages and lettuces.
 
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We get them in a lot of Australia too but here they don't migrate. Not sure what their traditional diet would have been here but I know from experience that they love cabbages and lettuces.

Monarchs in Australia

It seemed unlikely to me that the species could change host plant, so I looked it up. Monarchs in Australia lay their eggs on members of the milkweed family.

From the above link:
an appropriate host plant, a milkweed, sometimes called cotton bush, would have to be present. There are milkweed species, like the bush banana, in Australia. But the butterfly does not seem to use them. Instead it predominantly uses two species, also imports from other parts of the world—neither of which are from North America.

So, the monarch and the milkweeds it likes are not native to Australia and apparently the butterflies and their hosts are considered pests by scientists, but attractive and pretty by the general population.

Apparently, Monarchs have spread over the entire world.

Thank you for posting that, Outdated. I learned some new, interesting stuff.

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