Milkweed is celebrated for being monarch butterfly caterpillars’ exclusive food. However, when you look closely, you’ll see a milkweed patch supports a diverse community of nectar sippers, leaf munchers, and pollinator predators. What will you find on a milkweed patch exploration? Here are some creatures to look for:
Milkweed flowers have especially sweet and plentiful nectar that attracts bees, wasps, butterflies, and moths.
Some insects absorb toxins from milkweed’s milk-colored sticky latex sap and thus are toxic themselves. They warn predators of their distastefulness with bold orange/red and black coloration.
Goldenrod crab spiders ambush milkweed’s pollinating insects, as do other predators like robber flies, dragonflies, and wasps. Crab spider mothers prefer milkweed as a place to lay their eggs, and then they guard them until they hatch.
Here are some books about the milkweed patch ecosystem:
