Thanks for the info, Ron! I never noticed that about the gold behind the head of the Polydamas. I think you may be right. I don't get to see Pipevine caterpillars too often so I haven't studied them as thoroughly. Last night, I couldn't sleep and was bored so I downloaded all the pictures from my external drive that were on my old computer and put them on my new computer. I was looking at photos going back to 2006 and there were lots of really awful butterfly photos (that was two cameras ago) but I'll look through them some more and see if I can find more caterpillar shots.
As for the Tropical Milkweed...well, part of it is that I've been doing the native plant talk and I feel like I have to walk the walk. Another part of it is that studies have come out showing that in areas such as ours, where the Monarchs don't migrate, they continue laying eggs on the Tropical Milkweed all through the winter. Native milkweeds tend to die back. Well, because they keep breeding through the winter, they continue to spread a spore that infects them that we call OE for short. More info here:
http://www.monarchwatch.org/bi... Basically, in places where the milkweed dies back, the Monarchs stop breeding and the spore kind of dies down for the winter. But if you have a continuous breeding population, the spore never takes a "break". Studies found that the caterpillars and butterflies in areas where the Monarchs were breeding all winter on the Tropical Milkweed had a much higher incidence of infection. Now, at first everybody panicked and all the papers were running headlines like, "Could you be killing Monarchs by trying to help them?" I decided to go all native (sort of, I still have some Giant Milkweed) and ripped out my Tropical Milkweed. For those who want to keep the Tropical Milkweed either because they like it or can't find any other species, you can just cut it back in the winter. You may have to keep cutting it back because it sprouts like crazy. And honestly, cutting it back is good anyway because it will encourage a bushier plant just like most plants. So cut it back during the winter to keep the Monarchs from breeding and to make your plant bushier. Or just go native. FYI, I've been cold-stratifying Whorled Milkweed and Spider Milkweed. I also have some Butterfly Weed (Asclepias tuberosa) seeds. They're actually pretty easy to find; I saw them at Home Depot a week ago.
