New Cats!

When we got home on Saturday, I was checking out all our growing things. I didn't expect it to be dry while we were gone, so some of the plants, particularly my basil I had been so proud of, were kind of droopy. My front yard milkweed is looking great! Some of it is nearly a foot tall! And in the backyard I was in for a big surprise!

I knew there might be a caterpillar out there because we found a 1st instar cat right before we left - what I didn't expect was this:


This is NOT a monarch - it's a queen butterfly caterpillar. I saw the 3rd set of antenna and thought - what is wrong with these things!?!? but I remembered that queens are a lot like monarchs, but have more antennas. Look at how PINK the bottoms of the antennas are!


And a close up: