- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Published on: August 21, 2020
When you observe a monarch butterfly laying eggs on your milkweed--and see the predators and parasitoids circling in anticipation--act fast if you want those eggs to develop into adults. Only about 10 percent of monarch eggs make it to adults, scientists estimate.
The predators? They include lady beetles (aka ladybugs), spiders, milkweed bugs, assassin bugs, wasps and birds. Parasitoids? The major ones here in our family's pollinator garden in Vacaville are the tachinid flies. They lay their eggs in or on your caterpillars or on the leaves where your caterpillars will be feeding. The tachinid eggs hatch and develop into larvae that will eat your host from the inside out. (We like...
Tags: floral tubes (1), lidded containers (1), monarch nursery (1), monarch starting kit (1), rearing monarchs (2), UC Davis Bohart Museum of Entomology (3)
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