We are 95% these are young monarchs. I have never seen so many on one leaf. Does anyone know if this is common? They are in out back yard so will be checking back on them each day. We usually only see a couple at a time but are larger then. Maybe a centimeter long when we start finding them.
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Can’t really tell by the picture. Is it on milkweed? As far as I know a monarch lays one egg on a milkweed leaf. This pic is a monarch caterpillar. I’m thinking they are something else but the leaf kind of looks like milkweed. My daughter used to raise about 50 of them each summer. Good learning project.
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That was my first thought – I think they only eat milkweed.
Would be fun to catch some to grow. I think its pretty easy, just need a vented container and milkweed leaves.
These are on milkweed. They just hatched yesterday from small eggs. My kids usually don’t put the caterpillars in the butterfly house till they are big. This year they wanted to find the eggs before they hatched and think we did. I was just surprised how many there are. We have found a few that are very young caterpillars about a centimeter long this week. They have color then but these are still white and just starting to get color. This is out first time seeing them this young.
If they turn out to be monarch, you’re gonna need a continuous supply of fresh milkweed for quite awhile for all of those. They eat/pooh like crazy and grow fast.
Hard to tell, but I’d be surprised if they were monarchs. Like someone said they spread their eggs out because they’ll starve otherwise. They have ferocious appetites.
I had some growing on a tropical milkweed in the corner. I had to make an emergency trip to buy bushes one Sunday because they had eaten the smaller plants I planted. Just made it before closing. I won’t say how much I paid.
Pug, that’s what I am wondering also. We have never seen so many at once and is making us second guess that they are monarchs. We have a good amount of milkweed here. I would guess 70-100 plants within 100 ft of where I took the photo and doesn’t stop beyond that. Here are a couple more photos. I will see if the kids can find a couple that are more mature. I believe this is our second round of monarch eggs this year. They are under the leaf in the center of the photo that is all chewed up. We have never seen a leaf eaten like this before either. Just because of the way that the hard material of the leaf was left behind making it look like a web.
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Void this post. These are not monarchs. Looked like 1st day ones that we have seen in photos but the eggs came out of a cluster/sack. We just found the webbed sack. So there’s that. Haha. Monarchs lay single eggs at a time and what you all said makes perfect sense and lines up with what we were just reading also.
I will post a photo in a day or two when they get bigger and maybe have a better idea what these are.
Might be one of those tent caterpillars
I was gonna vote no on the Monarchs definitely look more like a forest tent or similar variety. Monarchs look like Monarchs from the moment they hatch. We raise tons every year and it’s rare to find 3 or more on one plant. We have a couple stretches of county road that are solid milkweed in the ditch. By mid August it gets sprayed every year, so we go “rescue” the catepillars before they get dusted. Then starts the daily chores of me grabbing some weed on my way home from work….. 
Tussock moths. Was on my neighborhood FB page too, otherwise I’d have no idea. They say there will be nothing left of your milkweed!
Squish, or use for bait?
It’s cool that you guys are actively helping the monarch population. Like most ‘desirable’ wild things, they’re being threatened by habitat loss, etc., and can use all the help they can get.
I just noticed a small monarch on our tropical milkweed. I only saw one, which is good. I’m not sure this bush is even big enough for one. I’ve been pruning it here and there to encourage it to grow more branches and be less leggy.
If they start getting fuzzy, they’re definitely milkweed tussock moth caterpillars.
I’ve seen more Monarch butterflies this year than any other year that I can recall. We did plant a small butterfly bush this spring that’s been blooming all summer so far.
We are lucky to have a row of trees and shrubs behind us that attracts butterflies, especially when the Brazilian pink pepper tree is blooming. There are also some morning glories, but even absent of flower we see a lot of species flying around.
Walked out this morning and found out the monarch had cocooned in plain site sort of.
This is above a window on the bottom of the boards that meet the stucco.
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