Well, we haven’t seen any monarchs on our milkweed in the Maryland School pollinator garden this year, but we did have one special visitor earlier this month!
Right before Fall Break, we spotted a close relative (and pretty good mimic) of a monarch caterpillar, the queen. This queen caterpillar looks very similar to the monarch in many ways. Both have stripes of yellow, white, and black, but the queen has an extra pair of filaments sticking out along its back. It was enjoying some of the milkweed just like monarchs do. Sadly, we missed its transformation while school was closed for break. We’re keeping an eye out for more colorful queens – maybe we’ll have some monarchs show up soon, too!
