Nature may often be beautiful, but its beauty masks a savage world. By mid-summer, I start to explore milkweed plants to see if the caterpillars of monarch butterflies are feasting on them. I arrived a few minutes late at this one. A marauding yellow jacket beat me. Here it dines on a monarch butterfly caterpillar that won’t make the winter migration to Mexico. Its fluids coat the milkweed leaf. There is no larger version of this image. Sorry.