Milkweed beetles

[Holly in FL]

Will milkweed beetles kill monarch caterpillars? I am baffled as to where all our monarch caterpillars are. We had about 8 last week...then, it was down to 4. This morning...none. They were still young caterpillars...nowhere near the time to go off to form their crystallis.

~Holly

[Unicorn]

I googled but I didn't find anything about the beetles preying on monarch caterpillars. Maybe it was a not so well informed bird or two?

[Holly in FL]

Maybe...

We had about 10 monarchs last year...live to be butterflies. I hope we get more that survive this year.

Thanks!
~Holly

[Brenda in FL]

Don't know about beetles. We had aphids but they didn't seem to harm the caterpillars. However - we experienced the caterpillars disappearing as well. I think once they are ready to cocoon they go off somewhere else - we could never find.

We always transferred them to our aquarium once they seemed large enough. (Not too large - or they disappeared before we transferred them - and not too small - because they were more fragile and didn't always survive us transferring them.

I need to go buy a new plant or two. I was hoping that the one from last year would begin to grow again - but it seems pretty spent!