I was searching my computer archives so to speak the other day because a friend shared a photo of a caterpillar with me. A caterpillar. You might ask, Why? Well, my adventure of raising Monarch butterflies began with a moth. I ran across a story that I wrote 20 years ago about my experience with the moth. So I thought I'd share it here.
Our Moth Story
Last summer, my husband and I began taking short
walks in our local Pennsylvania state parks.
One mid-July evening we were just heading back to our car, when I
noticed some unusual looking patterns on the ground near the gravel walk. I bent down to get a better look and
discovered two pair of large tan moth wings with large eyespots on each. There was no body attached, so I assumed it
had made a meal for a hungry bird. I
collected the wings to take home to show our young grandchildren who had
recently become interested in butterflies.
They were a hit and were identified as the wings of the large and
beautiful Polyphemus Moth. About a week
later, we were at the local ice cream stand and there quietly perched on the
side of the trash can was a live Polyphemus Moth. I gently collected it, again, to show our
grandchildren. I placed the moth in a
net butterfly house for the night and upon checking on “her” in the morning was
surprised to find that she had begun to lay eggs. Our moth laid eggs for
several days before quietly passing away after fulfilling her only
purpose. About 12 days later, the eggs
began to hatch into tiny ¼” long caterpillars.
I collected leaves for them to eat and they seemed to settle on the ones
from my maple tree. My husband
constructed a larger screened enclosure to protect our tiny caterpillars from
predators. Over the next month and a
half, the caterpillars grew into plump, bright green 3 inch long caterpillars
and began to form their cocoons on Sept. 21st. In the end, there were about 3 dozen cocoons
that overwintered on our deck.
Throughout this process, our grandchildren would come and ask about the
caterpillars and cocoons and now are waiting for the next generation of moths
to emerge from their winter homes. A
chance discovery that gave us a fun way to teach children about one of nature’s
most miraculous transformations.
Our new generation of moths began to emerge from
their cocoons on June 8, four males and 2 females. On June 9, one female. We had sent several cocoons home with our
grandchildren, so that they could possibly get to see some emerge and those
also began to emerge. Their first one on
June 12. On June 15, we found new
caterpillars in our enclosure, the result of keeping our new moths enclosed too
long in order for the grandchildren to view them. These we fed for a few days and then placed
them out onto our Maple tree. Our
cocoons continued hatching into July, with one male on the 4th and
another male on the 7th.
While we were away for a few days, 5 more emerged between the 8th
and the 13th and flew away as we had left the enclosure open to allow this. On July 16th and 17th 2
more males appeared. The 18th
gave us 2 males and 1 female. The 19th
gave us 3 females. Amazingly, all of our
cocoons produced a beautiful moth. They
varied in size and color vividness. Two
stayed on our deck all day and mated. Our grandchildren were able to see all of the
stages these moths go thru and helped release the new adults into our yard to
begin the cycle all over again. I look
forward to possibly encountering some of our moth family this coming
summer.
Some photos of my moths -
Polyphemus moths are one of the largest moths in North America, part of the silk moth family. The caterpillars grow very large and eat voraciously for about 5 or 6 weeks. They form their cocoon by wrapping themselves up in a leaf. If it is early in the summer, they will emerge about a week or two later, but as I experienced, it was late summer and the cocoon overwintered and emerged in late spring. The moth is born with no mouth parts so has no need to eat. It's only purpose is to breed and lay eggs. The adult moth only lives for about a week. The Caterpillars and moths serve as a food source for birds, other insects, squirrels, raccoons, mice and bats.
I found these moths to be a very gentle and calm creature and interesting to watch. I never did see one of these moths again.
Some photos I found at prairiehaven.com of eggs, a caterpillar and cocoon. My own photos were lost at some point.
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