My New Promethea Moths

This afternoon a friend tagged me on a Facebook photo of two large moths. The photo was taken by her relative in Menomonee Falls. My friend, who knows of my moth-fixation, was hoping I'd be able to help ID her cousin's find. I knew right away from the photos that the moths were either Cecropia, Polyphemus, or Promethea. I asked for more wing shots and then determined that they are Promethea moths -- a kind of Giant Silk Moth that is a relative of Actias luna.

I mentioned that my friend's cousin should try to save the eggs of the female moth (in the picture, the two were mating). She said raising moths wasn't really her cup of tea, but mentioned that I could claim the eggs -- and the moths -- if I so desired. It took me about ten minutes to decide whether it would be worth it to drive out to Menomonee Falls from Tosa to retrieve the moths. The decision was made when my friend's cousin told me that to prevent them from flying off while I was en route to her house, she coaxed them onto a stick and then put them in a five-gallon bucket with a screen top. "I'll be over right after dinner," I said.

I am now delighted to have in my brief possession a beautiful mating pair of Promethea moths. The male has wings that are a rich, dark brown (almost black) with waves of lighter browns on the back and more reddish colors underneath. Sadly, his wings are now tattered from all the time spent in flight, searching for a mate. The female's wings are in better shape at this point; they're a beautiful reddish-brown, with dots and waves of white and brown and other lovely accents. The wingspan is between three and four inches.

Naturally, I turned to the Canadian moth guru Bill Oehlke for information on how to rear Promethea offspring. I'm hoping the female will lay her eggs on a paper towel I placed in the five gallon bucket.

Here are two photos. The first is the best shot I could get of the active-but-worn-out male and the impregnated female; the second is a close-up of the female.





These two Promethea join the nine-plus Lunas that have eclosed over the last couple of days inside my moth terrarium. I already have eggs from one mating pair of Lunas and look forward to raising a new generation of caterpillars -- hopefully two kinds!

Transformation

This morning I sifted through the cardboard bankers box that currently houses my luna moth caterpillars to separate cocoons/pupae from larvae, as well as to remove dead leaves, stripped tree branches and caterpillar droppings.

In the sorting process I snapped some photos. Here's a late bloomer, getting ready to pupate. The little guy lifted his head off the branch he was hugging when he noticed my flash:



And here's an arrangement of pupae on the bankers box lid. Looks like some of the caterpillars spun pupated and then fell from the silken cocoons they'd spun. I'm not sure what this means for these "homeless" pupae. Should be interesting.



A very rough head count amounted to at least 40 cocoons and perhaps as many lazy caterpillars ready to pupate. I'm still willing to share. Any takers?

On a related note, in the process of removing the skeletons of devoured White birch branches I was able to save several White birch seeds. I put them in a one gallon zip lock bag and refridgerated them in the hopes that stratifying will ready them for planting, maybe in a few months. I'd love to be able to grow these beautiful trees; the parent birch in my neighbor's yard is gorgeous.

Spinning Cocoons

Today began with a visit to Tuesdays at Ten at Cranky Al's, where I brought some of my Luna moth larvae for a preschool story time centered on moths. It was so cute seeing how excited the kids were to touch such big, bright caterpillars! Here are two photos: one of two large lunas crawling on a stick and the other of my daughter and a caterpillar friend:





I've been slowly finding homes for a small percentage of the many caterpillars that have made it to the fifth instar. I also noticed today that one of my green caterpillars appeared to be blushing. At first I thought something was wrong until it occurred to me that perhaps it was preparing to spin a cocoon. Several photographs at the Actias luna wiki verified that Lunas can turn a pinkish hue just before pupating. Sure enough, just within the last hour we noticed several cocoons in our bankers-box-turned-Luna-habitat. Exciting stuff!



The wiki entry stated that unless lunas are diapausing over winter, the pupation process should take about two weeks. We'll see if, come early July, we have a new generation of adult lunas eclosing from their cocoons!

Luna Moths and White Birch Seeds

Sadly, my last living Luna moth is near death. All the others are gone, having petered out indoors or flown away. We released the beautiful #5 two days ago -- he happily flew off, never to be seen again. Now I'm left with three dead moths, one clinging to life, and two trays full of tiny eggs.

I'm not sure if all the eggs are fertile. I never saw #4 mate, so I separted the eggs of #3 and #4 as best I could, simply to find out if #4 did the deed in the middle of the night, or if she simply dumped her unfertilized eggs. Either way, she is now desperately laying the last of her eggs with whatever remaining energy she has. I've been dreaming about Luna moths for about two years, so at this point I kind of feel a little girl with nothing to do on the rainy Sunday after her birthday. Blah.

It's not really over, though: the big question now is whether the eggs will hatch, and, if they do, whether we'll be able to find leaves for them to eat this early in the spring. I'm crossing my fingers that we'll have White Birch, Sweet Gum and/or Black Walnut tree leaves before we have Luna moth caterpillars. I have a Black Walnut and my neighbor has a White Birch, but I have no idea what a Sweet Gum looks like. Guess I'll have to spend some time at Google Image Search to do an ID.

In the meantime, I manged to clip some seeds from my neighbor's White Birch. I read online that white birch seeds can be germinated under light; while the process described in the aforelinked .pdf is elaborate and complicated, I'm hoping that my oversimplified method of letting the seeds dry out under plant lights and then sowing indoors will work. This experiment, if successful, will involve an attempt to grow white birch in containers, outdoors in the summer and indoors in the winter. I would prune to control height and possibly use the leaves as a food source for future generations of Luna moths, mostly to supplement outdoor tree leaf harvesting.

The Fifth Luna

Today our fifth and final Luna moth eclosed from his cocoon. Yes, it's a male, which is great news because our other living male (#2) snuck out of the terrarium in the middle of the night and is probably resting up high somewhere inside my house. I expect him to start flying around this evening, as did #1 when he left home a few days ago. Our new guy looks just like the others, with one notable difference -- his burgudy markings are darker, and his legs are *very* hairy, almost resembling wolf spider legs. I admit that I was a little spooked when this one crawled on me, because of those dark, thick-looking legs (I'm a bit of an arachnophobe). #5 is now building up his strength on the side of the terrarium. Perhaps we'll have a love match with #4 this evening.

#3 seems to be done laying her eggs. She looks weak -- for a moment I thought she was dead, but then she moved her legs when I touched her. It's clear that her life is drawing to a close, but she may hang on for another day or two.

As #5 was our last cocoon, I will now wait patiently for the eggs to hatch in a week or two. Just hope we have some full leaves on our black walnut and white birch trees so the little ones have something to eat!

Moth Egg Update

Last night the mating Lunas finally separated and Luna #3 began laying eggs all over the terrarium. She spent much of today quietly moving from place to place to lay small clusters of dry brown eggs (each the size of a small seed) on the terrarium screening and frame. I assume that this behavior would, in nature, increase the likelihood that at least some of her offspring survive. If an egg-eating predator were to find all the eggs in one place, a moth's entire chance for its genetic code to continue would be gone in one gulp.

I have been very carefully collecting these eggs in a repurposed plastic chinese food container with a clear lid. I poked some air holes in the lid with a knife and have been holding the plastic bowl under the egg clusters and gently scraping them with my fingernail off the screening and into the container. I haven't counted, but I have at least a few dozen.

Today my mated pair (#s 2 & 3) look fatiqued -- they've fulfilled the purpose of their adult lives and seem ready to keel over. #4 has hardly moved and still looks pretty fresh. I wonder if #2 has enough juice left in him to take on a new mate.

#5 has yet to eclose. I know it contains a living creature -- when I pick up the cocoon I can feel the moth squirming inside. Hopefully it will come out sometime soon.

Earth Day Moth Eggs?

Yesterday was an exciting day at the Blue Bungalow Microfarm. We gained two female moths, witnessed the slow death of one, watched a mating dance begin.

It all started around noon. We were preparing to have our lunch when my 4-year-old pointed out that one of our three uneclosed moths was emerging from its cocoon. We were able to watch as the whole process occurred, this one much faster than the first two moths. #3 had a smooth entry into the adult world, coming out in just a minute or two.

I knew right away that it was a female because of her antennae -- they were longer and thinner than the bushy antennae of the males. As she pumped her wings with life, I also observed that she had a bulge in her abdomen the males didn't have. And I noticed that the female seemed more mellow -- she came out and crawled slowly up the screening until she reached the top of the terrarium, where she sat about six inches from the male (#2). When #1 came out, he was a little machine, charging around everywhere even when his wings were tiny stubs. #2 had that leg-loss trauma but was still more active than #3.

Later that afternoon I walked into my office and gasped when I saw that another moth had eclosed without us knowing. She was sitting on the terrarium screening pumping her wings. I could not believe I finally had a mix of males (well, one male, really -- #1 was barely alive) and TWO females. That meant mating would proceed promptly, right? When I raised Silkworm Moths last year, they emerged from their cocoons and were mating like fiends before their wings were full.

Not so with the Lunas. The three beautiful adult moths sat at the top of the aquarium for *hours* without moving even slightly.

Finally, around 8:30 p.m., some action: one of the females (#3, I believe) started courting the male -- aggressively. She inched toward him, sticking her hind quarters out in a way that made me wonder if she was emitting a hormone to "call" him. The poor dying moth at the bottom of the cage went crazy but could barely crawl to her, let alone fly. And "sticky legs" (#2, the one with the missing appendage) didn't seem that interested.

That is, until he began responding. For the next two hours or so they flew around each other. Then they would rest for a while. It was disappointing that they didn't latch on to each other right away, but not having gone through this complex mating dance before, I still had hope that they would do the deed at some point.

Sure enough, I woke up this morning and found them peacefully "connected" by their hind quarters, which, to the squeamish, might sound, well, gross, but is actually kind of lovely.

The thing is, they have been in this lovely embrace ALL DAY, and truthfully, I'm getting a little impatient. I have no idea when and if they will become unattached and when and where the female will start laying her eggs. I've heard that females like to crawl into paper bags to lay their eggs, so I have two on the bottom of the terrarium and today I even pinned a third bag up high inside the terrarium so she has options. I don't know if she's going to dump the sticky black-brown eggs all over the screening or be more discreet. I'm worried we'll lose the eggs if we're not careful, as I already found two or three stray eggs attached to the screening and lost them in the process of trying to brush them into a container. The tiny things popped away easily and fell to the floor, where they disappeared completely.

So I wait, and wait, and wait -- to find out if I'll be able to collect fertilized eggs, to see how long #1 will hold on for dear life before he passes into the Other World, and to learn whether #2 will attempt to mate with the other female (#4) soon.

Rediscovering Luna #1

He's not dead, and the dog did NOT have a mothy midnight snack early this morning. Luna #1 alive and well! The girls were watching TV a bit ago when they started shouting, "We found the other luna moth!" as the moth flew around in our living room. Thankfully, the girls had received butterfly nets for their birthdays last week, so we grabbed them and managed to catch the moth and return him to the terrarium.

This is when we discovered how he made his escape: as soon as we replaced him inside his "home," he flew straight to the bottom of the terrarium and wriggled his way out of the bottom edges of the screening secured only with one tie on each side of the square bottom. We caught him again and put him back. This time Steve and I tucked the loose edges of the screening under the wooden frame, hoping this would prevent the moth from escaping a third time. Amazingly, he did make an attempt, beating his now-frayed wings frantically around the bottom perimeter of the terrarium looking for an exit route. How does he remember where to go? His brain must be the size of a grain of rice, as I learned from this article.

I wondered if Luna #1 would take notice of Luna #2 when they were together in the terrarium, but they seem completely unaware of each other. The new male moth is quite calm. He flew for the first time about 30 minutes ago only to rest on in a new corner of the cage. The older moth is frantic, flapping his wings noisily about. He probably knows his days are numbered (adults only live for a week or so). I'm sure he's desperate to find a mate. I'd release him outdoors, but it's too cold up here in Southeast Wisconsin, and he'll never find a mate around here this time of year. Our Lunas eclose only once a year, in mid-June. He's better off in the terrarium waiting for his future mates to eclose. Hope we get a female or two soon!

Luna #2

Still haven't located Luna #1 (my daughter suggested this morning that our golden retriever might have eaten him in the middle of the night -- ugh). In the meantime, we have a new moth! This one started breaking through its leaf-wrapped cocoon at 9:48 this morning; it rested for a few minutes and then was almost totally out by 10:20 a.m.

I thought we were in the clear at that point until I realized that it hadn't fully emerged. It seemed to be struggling to be free of the cocoon, so I picked it up and noticed that one of its forelegs was stuck to the cocoon. I tried to very gently pry it loose, but was afraid I'd end up injuring the moth. So I ended up breaking apart the cocoon from the opposite end of the hole from which the moth eclosed, hoping to free the leg that way. I was able to get the moth loose, but at the expense of that leg, which remained with the cocoon. Poor thing! I hope it survives this ordeal. It is now resting inside the terrarium.

I have been wondering over the last few days whether the males or females are the first to emerge; just came across the answer to this question at the University of Florida Extension site: "Adult eclosion (emergence from pupa) typically occurs in the morning with males usually beginning emergence several days before females. Morning emergence allows time for expansion and drying of the wings prior to the evening flight period. Also, during the first day after emergence, the moth voids the reddish-colored, liquid meconium which is composed of the breakdown waste products of the old larval tissues." (Incidentally, as I was trying to help free Luna #2 I got a squirt of tan meconium right on my hand. Ack.)

I assume that this is another male, given the early eclosure and bushy antennae. I hope the leg-loss wasn't too great of a setback. Despite this small tragedy, its wings seem to be lengthening nicely. So far, so good.

Moth Mystery

I woke up this morning and found that my one eclosed Luna moth is missing! I thought it had died, or that perhaps it had crawled to some dark corner inside the terrarium to hide. So I looked all over the inside of the netting and couldn't find a trace of it. Now I'm worried that it's flying around my house. Eek! I'll keep looking.

Luna #1

One of my five Luna moths eclosed today!



This morning, while working in my office, I heard a light flicking sound inside the butterfly terrarium a few feet away. It was fairly repetitious, so I figured something was happening with one of the luna moths. Sure enough, one of the cocoons was active; it wasn't long before a tuft of creamy, furry "scales" started poking out just a little bit from a hole in one end of the cocoon.

After a couple minutes wrestling around inside the cocoon, the moth stopped moving. The girls and I picked it up to take a closer look. I tried to take some photos with my husband's complicated SLR camera but couldn't figure it out (even in auto mode I was only able to take one blurry pic, nothing worth sharing). I put the cocoon down and a minute or two later it became active again. At that point, it only took a couple of minutes for the moth to push itself out of the cocoon. The body was furry and white and limp, but soon it stretched to become a full-size abdomen. The bushy antennae (which indicate, I think, that it's a male) perked up right away. The little guy was very busy from the get go, crawling all over the place. It couldn't fly, of course -- its wings were too tiny and shriveled to be of any use at that point. So I put him in the terrarium and he climbed the screening all the way to the top of the cage, where he rested on the wooden frame for a couple hours, pumping up his wings.

The girls and I left the house for an excursion to the park, and when we came home the Luna had a beautiful 3 1/2 inch wingspan. The wings are crisp and bright, a pale green color lined with burgundy and with two eyes on the wings. The eyes and tail-like hind wings kind of resemble the face of an elephant. The moth is very calm, sitting perfectly still inside the terrarium (undoubtly waiting to mate with one of other moths). It's really quite a sight -- beautiful, serene. When it flies, its shivering wings make it look like a tiny angel.

Here's another pic of the moth inside the butterfly terrarium my in-laws created for me:



There is one more pic (and plenty of other photos that have nothing to do with moths) at my husband Steve's flickr site. Enjoy!

Butterfly Terrarium and Salad Table

Yesterday I had the pleasure of picking up two products developed by my talented mother and father-in-law: a 6' tall, screened "butterfly terrarium" to house my Luna moths, still resting in their cocoons, and a "salad table." My mother-in-law fashioned the screening for the terrarium, and my father-in-law did woodwork for both projects.

The terrarium is in my office, near a north-facing window. I hope to grow some kind of plant inside and raise future generations of luna moths within the screening.

I placed the salad "table" (which actually looks more like a drawer with screening on the bottom) onto the rusty metal frame of an antique soapstone utility sink we removed from our basement last summer. It's sitting on a largely unused patch of concrete next to my house. I lined the bottom of the three cells of the table with dead leaves, then topped with potting soil and seed starter. Mixed in some coffee grounds and worm castings, then planted one of the cells with lettuce mesclun seeds. Will plant the other two cells later -- want to stagger the harvest. Mulched, as per usual, with peat moss.



Here's a link to a page with photos of my father-in-law Stan's other wood projects. My home is filled with mission-style furniture he crafted in his home wood shop.

Raising Luna Moths

The nine Actias luna cocoons I ordered from Bill Oehkle in Canada arrived in my mailbox today, packed in a small cardboard box. They seem to be active within their cocoons! I put them in an old 2.5 gallon aquarium for now. Should emerge in 7 to 14 days. I am hoping to raise my own five cocoons indoors. Four will go off to two friends in the neighborhood. I hope to have them mate, save the eggs, and raise a new brood. If I can, I'll eventually release some into the wild (after the city sprays for Gypsy moths in May/June). I know it's a lofty goal, but I'd love to replenish the silk moth population in Milwaukee County!

In case you've never seen a Luna moth, here's a picture from Bill's site: