For Dale

Here are some of the caterpillars eating the milkweed plants I found. They are colored black, yellow and white like the Monarch but have 3 sets of antennae. Maybe they are somewhat like the queen butterfly caterpillar. The butterfly itself is orange with black markings and white slashes along the outer part of the wings.

I walk

I walked to Ban Don Wai today. It is about one mile to this sleepy country town from my house. I bought 2 watermelons there and walked back. Here are the pictures I took along the way. Dale, I took pictures of a couple of the milkweed plants again. Two things came out of that. 1. I found the typical orange aphids on the plants and 2. I found an egg on the underside of a leaf. I saw an orangeish butterfly hanging around. It was about 1/3 the size of a Monarch and not patterned like the Monarch. Also I found a clump of Milkweed about 12 feet high. Also found along the trip: baby Water Buffalo bathing in a mud hole, a rice field nearing harvest, a lumber mill, a dead snake, a narrow dirt road, roosters being raised under baskets and the town of Ban Don Wai. I will dump the pictures here. Ban Don Wai, Udon Thani, Issan, Thailand

Milkweed

I have come across what appears to be a milkweed here. Milkweed interests me because of the Monarch Butterfly. They use milkweeds as their host plant and sometimes milkweed has been hard for me to come by. These plant I have found have a woody stem and can be up to about 12 feet tall. They grow in huge clumps sometimes. Here is are pictures of one plant I found along the road today. By the way I have found no butterflies using the plant for food. Udon Thani, Issan, Thailand, Southeast Asia