Today I was picking first instar(monarch) cats off of the milkweed plants.With my little paint brush and placing them on little milkweed plants in 4 inch pots.Well I found a 3rd instar cat and place him on the small milkweed plant then I put a newborn cat right next to the big guy and as soon as I did ,the big guy moved and touch the little guy and went postal on the new born.He grabbed the little guy with his mouth and was trying to crush him and just keep doing it until finally he released the little guy and went away from the scene of the crime .The little guy was dead for sure. Now I have seen the big fat cats fight for their spot on the leaf ,it only last a second or two and they break up and just move on.But this wasn't like that at all.Have any of you ever seen a killer cat before?
Don
Weirdest thing happened out at the monarch patch
Wow, that's an amazing observation. I had no idea that could happen.
Yikes, I didn't know that. Thanks for the info. Karen
I've not actually SEEN them do it but I know they do. I have had first instars disappear and could only assume that the larger ones ate them so I asked fellow butterfly gardeners who confirmed my suspicions. Apparently the cats just don't have good vision and when they bump into the smaller one they assume it's either more food or an enemy.
I had a Queen once that had a bite on it's back but it survived and pupated fine. I found a pic of it and enlarged it so you can kind of see the missing skin just under it's head area. :(
So, the moral of the story is to keep them separated!
Oh my! Killer catapillars? Scary.
Tina
Konkrete, Thanks for the info and great photo of the bite victim
I posted this in the SFL Galloping Gardeners forum because I read your post. I'll copy it so as to not re-type it all.
The other day I read a post in the butterfly forum in which a member was asking if they have ever seen monarch caterpillars kill their own. I had never heard of it or seen any signs of aggression, but Sunday while I was working in the yard I started observing the caterpillars, and boy are they aggressive with each other. Two large ones were trying to get rid of a smaller one that was eating a milkweed leaf. The most amazing thing was that it seem that the largest of all went through some kind of thought pattern to get rid of the little one. It crawled to the stem where the little one was and began to chew the side of the stem that held the leaf. In no time flat, the leaf and little caterpillar fell to the ground. After this the culprit moved to that area and finished chomping the leaves around the stem. Then (bear with my story please) the other large one moved to that area and the 2 began to fight trying to make one of them fall to the ground. My DH and I were quite fascinated by this because we had never seen this type of behavior. Once again, my DH took some pictures and here they are.
In this picture they are fighting.
Val
I haven't seen that with Monarchs but I know that the Giant Swallowtail caterpillars are cannibalistic. One will just disappear, with maybe a little bit of its body fluids or tissues left. Usually it's a smaller caterpillar that is eaten.
Val, that's a great observation! I have seen this kind of "fighting" behavior in groups of cats but just thought it was more that they have such limited eyesight and they just bump into whatever is close and keep bumping to see if it will eventually move. Eating the leaf so that the other cat falls to the ground sounds premeditated to me tho! lol I don't usually get any cats until late in the season but I'll be watching them closer this year.
Val,
Great Photo's! What kind of camera did you use for the great close-ups?