I don't know what instar phase is. I can tell you it appeared like it was looking for a place to pupate because it had crawled to the top of the shelter which is all screen and which is where most of our caterpillars pupate. He has plenty of leaves to munch on. What I forgot to mention is that it got pretty cold last night (near 30), so we brought the shelter in off our back screened porch and into our garage. It is warmer in there. Perhaps the cold has them just in a state of limbo. Most of them crawled to the top of the cage late last night. Thank you very much.

So sorry to hear this. I'm not an expert, but if it's still not moving around, I'd separate it from the rest in case it's diseased. (I was asking about what instar phase because I thought yours might be a little guy -- instar is the phase between two molts. A few of my eggs hatched yesterday, and the tiny cats weren't moving around much.) Good luck.

Oh, javiwa, thank you. We just took him out. We were gone most of the day and he was still in the same spot and wouldn't move. I gently picked him up and could tell he was dead - I felt so bad, but the birds would have eaten him, so at least we gave him a chance. Thank you for explaining about instar. As the morning progressed today, the cats that were on the top started coming down and eating milkweed. So, I think perhaps they went up there to sleep? Just a guess. Anyway, thank you very much. And how cool about your eggs hatching. ADORABLE.

Well, that's sad, but Mother Nature's doing her thing.

We used to raise Monarchs indoors when the kids were little, as a rescue mission (wasps would munch the little cats, and it really upset my youngest to witness that). It was an incredible experience, from beginning to end. Monarchs have been rather sparse in our yard over the past several years, so I'm resurrecting my butterfly garden as a pet project (sans little kids as they're grown and off the family payroll as of last May).

I just can't resist these little guys. :)

I know it's hard to watch when something happens to them but any little thing we do helps. I remember a friend of mine found a beautiful moth in his yard. His little girl at the time loved (and still does) all kinds of nature. She wanted to keep the moth, but he told her it's not right to keep wild things as pets. So they let it fly off. As it was flying through the air, a bird came and scarfed it up. Poor little girl was so upset. My friend spent alot of time explaining the laws of nature to her. I know these things can sometimes upset us, but it is Mother Nature's way and I believe we need to respect that, too. I hope you have much success with your butterfly garden. I know I love watching them, too. Best of luck and thank you for helping me.

I could have written this same thing. This is a picture of my caterpillar yesterday. I believe 3rd instar going into 4th instar. It has been in the same place and position since early this morning. I hope he its dead. This was my first time trying to raise a monarch butterfly.

Terri, I don't know what to tell you except what I already wrote. Sadly, we no longer live in the place where we were able to raise them - we don't get many Monarchs in our new area. But we get other beautiful butterflies. I think you might want to wait until tonight or tomorrow morning and then gently lift him to see if he is still alive. You can remove part of the leaf where he is an then just gently nudge him to see. If he doesn't make it, it will be sad, but please keep trying. The first one we tried to save made it to the butterfly stage, but one of his wings was stuck together and he was never able to get it open to full stage. We made a small effort to try to help, but found that his wing was deformed. So, I brought some butterly weed and other plants into the screened in porch where we had him and he died shortly thereafter. I was so sad and swore I wouldn't mess with them again, but we had so many that I couldn't resist. It was an experience of a lifetime. My neighbor who had a memory garden next to a school where her grandson had attended (sadly he passed away in an accident) asked if she could have the butterfly habitat (box) that my husband made when we moved away, so we gave it to her. She was going to add it to the memory garden so the children at the school could come and see the butterflies hatch. So, you see, our efforts brought (I hope) some good to the children and the butterfies. I took a long video of one hatching and shared it with her to show the children. I hope your caterpillar survives. I'm so glad you are doing this.