Monarch Butterfly Catepillars: Don’t be mad that they ate your parsley!
Posted on | October 13, 2009 | No Comments
I was NOT the biology major. I got my only college D in that class and that thankfully by 1 point! 
The sister however, graduated top of her class in BIOLOGY so maybe I got my interest in nature through osmosis!!!
I’ve always loved Monarch Butterflies… colorful, gentle, beautiful, graceful…all those cool adjectives.
On the reverse, I DON’T like creepy, oowwwy, 
looking bugs in the garden. My first impulse is to KILL them because they are creepy.
NOOOOOooooooo don’t get out the bug spray even though they ARE going to eat ALL your parsley to the GROUND.
The good news: these funny yellow fat guys produce the beautiful Monarch Butterfly AND the parsley will grow back!!
I’ve watched these guys do their thing for several seasons and each year I plant more parsley so they can have some and so can I. This year, they ate it ALL down to the nubs FOUR different times this summer, Frankly, don’t care. These guys are cool. And yes, now the parsley is growing back!
They become big yellow FAT things coming from a little egg, then looking like a skinny pencil lead becoming about 2 inches long and fatter than a big pencil!!! You can see huge changes from day to day. Then they attach to a limb and build their Chrysalis.
This year I’ve had 4 batches of them ending with this last batch of about 40 or 50.
KEY Point: Don’t spray these cool dudes when invade your garden & eat your parsley next year. Just plant more parsley!
God is so cool and has SUCH a sense of humor. I have to remember NOT to get in His way with my bug spray!!! I have to slow down and even enjoy the creepy things He makes! But I draw the line at the cockroach! Those things are just creepy!
Now back to your regularly recorded programming. Science class is OVER!!!
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