From the moment a Monarch caterpillar emerges from its egg, it is an eating machine (even consuming its empty egg shell!). Once a Monarch caterpillar has finished eating one leaf it moves to the next, and then the next, and then the next, until they literally have eaten themselves out of house and home. And because milkweed is the only plant a Monarch caterpillar will eat, one can only hope they have a large enough crop to support this insatiable bunch until they finally wander off to pupate.
