Caterpillar Eating Milkweed. If you don t want to buy another plant find a swampy or weedy roadside area and look for some common milkweed. As you can see in the photo above yes the caterpillars will eat the stems but they will not last long with a hungry monarch caterpillar.
New evidence identifies 64 pesticide residues in milkweed the main food for monarch butterflies in the west. I found out that you can substitute cucumber slices or raw pumpkin. The markings are similar enough that some people could be mistaking the black swallowtail caterpillar for the monarch caterpillar.
Milkweed is most often thought of as the home and food source of monarch butterfly larvae.
If you don t want to buy another plant find a swampy or weedy roadside area and look for some common milkweed. Milkweed samples from all of the locations studied in california s central valley were. By dee dee on ecosystem gardening. With their distinctive black white and gold pin striped suits and expressive dark tentacles reaching out into the universe that s no surprise.