Creepy Crawler

A couple of weeks ago, when we were sitting in our garden enjoying the sunshine, a monarch butterfly flew by. I decided it would be good to get a swan plant, because that is what they like to la their eggs on.

Saturday week ago, when at the Warehouse (the NZ equivalent of Walmart) I purchased a swan plant. I planted it in the garden beside our patio.

On Wednesday when my wife was going out she saw a Monarch caterpillar on the concrete driveway at the front of our house. She did not want to drive over it, so she chucked it on the garden. The next day the caterpillar arrived, through the fence onto our patio, so she picked him up and put him on the swan plant. The photo shows him munching away happily. He is already fifty percent bigger than he was when he arrived.

I do not know where the caterpillar came from. If he came from a neighbour’s house, he must have travelled at least twenty metres across hard ground and concrete drives. Not a bad effort for a little bug. Maybe a bird dropped him on our drive. I understand the caterpillars get a nasty taste from eating the swan plant.

The bug seemed to be heading for our plant. Could he smell it from meters away. I don’t know, but it seemed like it.