Cghpnd, I'm so sorry you're having bad luck. Did they seem OK when you found them? Are there more cats still living? If so, make sure you separate the eggs from them. You probably want to have multiple containers that you can move the cats and eggs to as they grow, and clean the alternate containers with bleach each time you switch them out. There are nasty diseases that Monarchs can carry and pass on to one another. Some people who raise Monarchs insist that each cat should be kept in an individual container. It certainly makes sense to keep small groups separate, so if one container is infected, at least the other groups have a chance to avoid infection. And wash hands and milkweed carefully. Again, some people soak their milkweed in a weak bleach solution and then rinse it thoroughly before giving it to their cats, in case sick cats have crawled over the leaves before they collected them. Sorry to be a bit of a wet blanket, but there is obviously something seriously wrong, and I want the rest of your experience to be positive. Martha

Appears to be the cocoon of the incredible Cecropia moth, or perhaps the Polyphemus moth. Anyway, it's the cocoon of one of the Saturniid moths, known as the silk worms or Royal moths. VERY spectacular moths and caterpillars, all of them.

Those are the chains of eggs from one of the leaffooted bugs, a pest of some of our plants. I see them most often on the fruits of tomatoes and peppers in my garden.

Not insect eggs and not scary! That's a little outcropping of harmless slime mold, probably Leocarpus fragilis....sometimes called insect egg mold. Slime molds are not molds nor fungi at all. They feed on surface dust and debris, explaining why you've found this on several different things. Consider this an interesting lifeform, totally benign. Leocarpus images show up in the forums only once or twice a year, so thanks for posting such nice pictures. Here is a link that might be useful: Click here for more pictures