Dinner Party of Large Milkweed Bugs

I've shown Large Milkweed Bugs before, though usually they were single individuals or small groups. But it's not usual to see a sizeable number of these bugs together, like in the picture below.

I'm not exactly sure why this happens. I'm told that females usually lay around 30 eggs on/near a milkweed's seed pods; perhaps more than 1 female laid eggs near here. Or maybe this seed pod is a social hub where a maturing Large Milkweed Bug can find romance. This picture was from mid-September; I'm not sure if they mate that late in the season, or if they delay breeding until after migration.

Yes, these guys migrate! While they enjoy eating our milkweeds and our summer temperatures, they wouldn't survive our winters. They migrate south in the winter and then start spreading north in the spring, much like some bird species, presumably lagging a little behind the new growth of milkweed plants that time of year. (You don't want to migrate ahead of your food source.)

September 10, 2021 at Negri Nepote Native Grassland Preserve
Photo 167831089, (c) jpviolette, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC)


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