Butterflies on Fuerteventura

[Tardis]

This Monarch butterfly looks pristine.  I managed to photograph it within seconds of it flying from its chrysalis.

[TamaraEnLaPlaya]

Milkweed is in full bloom, some plants growing much better than others, also spotted a new seed pod on one, along with at least 2 new generations of Monarch caterpillars.

  

[TamaraEnLaPlaya]

Quite a few Painted Lady butterflies around

[TamaraEnLaPlaya]

Latest army of 25 Monarch caterpillars headed into the banana plant today to start their chrysalid stage:

 

Yesterday there was one caterpillar getting really cheesed off with his neighbours, he kept spitting green liquid at them 🤮🤣 apparently they do that if they get a bit overcrowded!

 

[Tardis]

This is either an African Monarch or Plain Tiger.  It's laying eggs on our Milkweed.

[TamaraEnLaPlaya]

pair of Monarchs getting down and dirty in my garden:

  

I had to stand guard over them for 10 minutes as a lizard was way too interested!

If anyone is after them, Happy Plants have got Milkweed plants for sale. I bought 5 new plants about 3 weeks ago and am already potting up 10 rooted cuttings and further fresh cuttings taken. Very few of last years plants are doing well in my garden - I think they get so decimated by the caterpillars that they struggle to survive. Some self seed in the garden but cuttings are way quicker for increasing plant numbers.

[TamaraEnLaPlaya]

Loads of Monarch caterpillars of various sizes munching their way through my garden at the moment:

  

[TamaraEnLaPlaya]

Most of the current army have progressed to the chrysalis stage:



even found them in the basil I was cutting for pesto!

[TamaraEnLaPlaya]

A couple of observations re my recent Monarch hatchlings:

I've had about 100 butterflies emerge from chrysalis over the last couple of months - I haven't seen 1 male!!

They have been feeding (sipping nectar) from a variety of flowers, not just milkweed: false pepper tree, mexican petunia, rosemary, lantana, bougainvillea.

The bees (the ones with the black and white striped rears) have been chasing the butterflies off of these other flowers!

Has anyone else seen similar?

I was doing some reading the other evening and discovered the sex of the butterfly is determined at egg stage. You can sex a caterpillar but you have to dissect it to do so. However, you can sex a chysalis! 

If you check the black dots area of the chrysalis near the cremaster hook, this is where there is a difference between the male and the female.
The female chrysalis has a tiny vertical slit just below the lower pair of black dots, whereas this area is smooth in the male.

[TamaraEnLaPlaya]

Checking my Monarch caterpillars today I noticed that some had slightly different markings:

Normal:                                                           Different:
 

I did a search using iNaturalist and discovered that they are the caterpillars of Danaus chrysippus, also known as African Monarch (amongst other names). They also feed on milkweed. It ties up with a butterfly sighting a week or two ago - I wasn't quick enough to get a pic then so this is from wiki:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danaus_chrysippus



I'm going to move a couple of these caterpillars to an enclosure tomorrow so I can double check the ID when they emerge as butterflies.