Good Moths and Bad Butterflies

Moths and butterflies are popularly believed to sit on opposite ends of the good-evil spectrum. Moths are often listed among the ranks of the villains of the insect world, and butterflies generally likened to angels, fairies, and other sweet, precious things.

In reality, there are "good" moths, and there are "bad" butterflies. Or rather, there are butterflies that can be quite a nuisance.

First, the good moths. I have Luna eggs -- lots of them. And I'd love to give some away. If you have any interest in trying to raise them, either as an ongoing hobby or as a one-time educational opportunity for yourself and/or your kids, please e-mail me. Lunas relatively easy pets, especially if you have easy access to their food supply: black walnut, white birch or sweet gum trees.

Speaking of good moths, I found someone in West Allis, another Giant Silk Moth hobbyist, who wants to trade eggs with me. He is raising Cecropias, Polyphemus and Monarch butterflies. I've always wanted to raise both Cecropias and Monarchs, and he doesn't currently have any Lunas. So today I'm supposed to drive out to his place, where he raises his moths in a large outdoor cage he uses to allow the mating females to "call" any males in the area with their scent hormones. Should be interesting.

Oh, and in my geekiest move yet, I started a Facebook fan page for Saturniinae. If you are on Facebook and like these amazing creatures as much as I do, please become a fan by searching on the name of the group: Giant Silk Moths.

Re: the bad butterflies. I harvested my first two brocoli florets late last week. Just took a kitchen knife and sawed off the biggest pieces. They were green and flawless, but for one thing -- caterpillars, small ones, hiding beneath each floret. And of course, I didn't discover this until *after* I blanched the brocoli for a pasta salad I was going to bring to a dinner with friends.

Had I bought this brocoli from the store and found it covered with worms, I might have tossed it right into the garbage, or perhaps the compost bin. But I painstakingly grew this brocoli myself. I wasn't going to give up on it that easily. So I very slowly examined each and every tiny bit to remove the half-boiled caterpillars. Needless to say, my children did not want to touch my "worm salad." My friends and Steve politely ate the salad, as did I. It tasted fine, and I'm fairly certain I got all the worms out, but I still ate every bite in terror that a forgotten worm would be revealed on someone's fork.

The pale green caterpillars are the offspring of a creature one might mistake as beneficial pollinator, a charming white butterfly that flits happily over one's vegetable garden before laying eggs all over the place.

I'm not sure how to handle something like this in the future. My understanding is that the best remedy for these or any "cabbage worms" is to remove the caterpillars as you find them and then squash them underfoot. I don't want to spray them with anything toxic -- that's surely far worse than finding unappetizing but probably healthy caterpillars on your food.

If anyone has a good organic worm removal method, please share. It's an icky sort of problem to have, to say the least. And I have yet to see what is revealed when I harvest the cabbages and cauliflower florets that are growing in the same square foot garden those charming white butterflies seem to love desecrating with their eggs.

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!

A Bright Moon in a Dark Sky

I realize it's been a while since I last posted to the blog, and frankly, it's probably because I've been a bit depressed since the caterpillars pupated. It's that time of year when so many people are out of town, the Fourth of July is over, and summer vacation gets into a kind of lull. Beyond that, though, there've been a few little upsets that got me down. For example, it looks like a creature of some sort snatched my baby pomegranates, because they're gone. My yard is starved for rain, the rain barrels are empty. Worst of all, I have *another* raging case of compost gnats in my vermicompost bins, an embarrassing problem for someone folks think of as a "go to person" on the subject of vermicomposting. I'm not sure whether to bring in the heavy artillary (beneficial nematodes) or perhaps dump the bins in my outdoor composter and start over with new worms. There is nothing worse than having to examine every beverage before taking a sip to make sure there aren't any gnats floating in the top. Major nasty.

So then today I got to spent a few hours with my mother-in-law and a friend at eight private gardens for the annual Secret Gardens of Wauwatosa Tour, which was great. I saw so many lovely things today that it inspired me to keep plugging away at my own gardens. At the same time, though, when I got home my own yard suddenly looked rather pathetic and messy, which again has me feeling glum. There's still so much work to do, and it's time consuming, potentially expensive work. Ugh.

Yes, fanatic growers do have their rough spells.

Thankfully, amid all this self-pitying I was given a special gift. When I sat down at my computer this afternoon, I looked over at the bankers box in which all my cocoons are sitting and saw one pale Luna moth resting inside. With the help of my two older daughters we gently lifted him out of the box and put him inside my screened butterfly terrarium.

Here are two photos of my new moth:






Isn't he sweet?

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!

Two Days of Major Garden Work

Monday and Tuesday of this week I spent a majority of the daylight hours working on my yard, prepping gardens for planting later this week or early next. I did so much work I could barely move when I woke up yesterday and today. Here's a list of the things I've done so far.

Monday
In the morning I went to the non-local big box hardware store to buy enough supplies to make one official Square Foot Garden grid and vertical growing component. I came home to find 8 cubic yards of mulch on my driveway. My 4-year-old and I ate lunch, then I set to work in the backyard. It took me all afternoon to pull weeds from the four raised beds in my backyard. I also made two upside down tomato planters out of hanging baskets, planted cherry tomato seedlings in them, and hung them on the gazebo just beyond the sliding glass doors in my kitchen.

Of course, it's always difficult to get much of anything done with a restless little one nearby. She managed to dig a few of her own holes in the backyard where the grass is supposed to be, played with (spilled) rain barrel water and climbed on the mulch pile a bit. I did my best to get stuff done, but lost my cool on more than a few occasions. When I get in "work mode" it's so hard for me to be patient with anyone who gets in my way. Something to work on.

I took a break around 3 p.m. to pick up the kids from school and Steve from work and then make and eat dinner.

After dinner I was very thankful to have Steve's help for a bit: he installed a grid on one of my raised beds, dividing it into 20 square feet of spaces for growing vegetables. In the meantime, I worked on transplanting some bleeding hearts and ferns to make room for the 12 foot long, three compartment composter I'll be putting near my four raised beds. Steve and I also poured big bags of peat moss and vermiculite on the raised beds.

Finally, Steve removed the picket fence walls from my old composter so I could use the compost and prepare for my new-and-improved composter, to be installed next week (I hope) by Steve and my father-in-law Stanley.

Tuesday

I woke up, took the kids to school, made some coffee with my French press and returned to the compost pile, which I spent about two hours dividing into four groups: unfinished compost (leaves, twigs, tree bark, potatoes/eggs, etc.), large twigs and tree branches that were mistakenly added to the composter, bits of plastic and metal that were also mistakenly added to the compost (including two frightening plastic animals -- a bat and a crayfish -- that I thought were real for a second), and the good, usable compost, which I added by the wheelbarrelful to my four raised beds. Although it was a tedious process, it was informative -- I learned what NOT to put in compost bins.

I picked up my preschooler at 11:15 a.m. and snuck in a quick trip to the grocery store. We ate lunch and then I put on my garden gloves again and got back to work, this time on a spontaneous project: I carted some lannon stones from my backyard to built two small, slightly raised beds in the front yard, along the sidewalk and front walkway. The purpose of these beds is mostly decorative, but I was thinking of adding some of the excess daylilies from the side of my house and planting one dwarf hazelnut in the center of each of the beds. Putting the stones in place was labor intensive but went quickly; the hard part was figuring out what to do with all the grass I'd soon be covering up with mulch. I started shoveling out the grass, but having done this many times before I wasn't too enthusastic about wasting time with this project when I had onions to plant. So I ended up improvising and came up with something neat. Instead of removing all the grass, I cut the grass out around the edges of each bed; that created a lower surface. I then took the grass pieces, flipped them dirt-side-up and used them to build up the center of each bed so that the tree planted in the middle would be raised. Then I planted four clumps of daylilies in each bed around the raised center, laid newspaper over the remaining grass and covered the newspaper with hardwood mulch. (FYI, this newspaper technique is great for removing unwanted grass in garden beds. I highly recommend it.)

Finally, I filled the new holes in the raised center of each bed with compost in preparation for the hazelnut planting. Incidentally, the two hazelnut trees I had ordered from Gurneys a while back seem to be dead. In fact, I don't believe they were alive at all -- I thought they were dormant and would start sprouting leaves once planted, but they don't seem active at all. So I e-mailed Gurneys and asked for replacements and was promptly sent an order confirmation for two new trees, as well as a new fig to replace the first fig I bought that dropped all its leaves just after I planted it. I'm impressed with their customer service.

I still need to finish the daylily removal project, but I'm now about 7/10 done and ended up planting the completed portion with transplanted chives from the backyard and a great many red and yellow onion sets, shallots and garlic. I may also plant some basil, cilantro, sunflower and merigolds in this bed. I'm thinking about starting these things indoors and transplanting them in a couple weeks. We'll see.

Oh, and I almost forgot to mention that I planted a second cell in my "salad table" with seeds, now that the first round of mesclun lettuce is growing nicely. This time I planted "Grand Rapids Tipburn Resistant" lettuce seeds.

I still have a lot more to do (i.e. planting four raised beds with vegetable seeds and plants and spreading nearly 8 cubic yards of mulch!) but I've made a lot of progress, so for now, anyway, I'm content!

One last note: looks like Luna #4 did indeed mate with one of the male moths -- the eggs I collected in a separate take-out container marked #4 hatched today! Now I've got several dozen growing caterpillars. I'll probably raise as many as I can, maybe let some go on a nearby white birch tree, save some to rear indoors, and give some away. Any takers?

A Farmer's Vacation

Saturday night we returned from a very unsustainable but nonetheless enjoyable vacation in Orlando, Florida. My database administrator husband was going to a conference at Orlando Conference Center, so the kids and I decided to go along for the ride. Perhaps in another sustainer's confessional post I'll share all of the sustainability sins I committed on this trip, which included allowing my kids to sample and throw away mounds of food at the complimentary breakfast bar, using far too many disposables, splurging on the hotel room A/C and watching a lot of cable on the huge TV in our room. Oh, and spending gobs of money at Disney World. The experience definitely made me wonder what travel will look like in a sustainable world. I seriously doubt the Oil Driven Tourism of the modern era will be possible as oil becomes more and more limited. That's a bit sad for those of us who grew up enjoying this kind of travel, but on the other hand, the possibilities of a less plastic travel experience are exciting.

I did have fun collecting seeds from various tropicals in the hopes that I could experiment with growing some of them indoors, starting with the dried black seeds of a potted schefflera in front of my hotel. If I knew more about grafting, I would have perhaps attempted to clip some tropicals here and there to grow my own trees back home. I got the idea from a friend who said his wife's Swedish grandparents clip branches off of trees when they travel and then graft them onto their own trees when they return home. They are growing oranges from California in Sweden as a result of their secret snipping. I'm so jealous.

I admit I was very uncomfortable leaving my plants unattended for over a week. Before I left I watered my vegetable sprouts heavily, mostly by filling up the flat bottoms with excess water and then closing the usually-open greenhouse door (although I didn't zip it for fear that the plants would overheat). My plants have really been babied -- they're used to being misted, turned to toward light and otherwise pampered every few hours, so I was worried they'd be dried up by the time I had returned. On the other hand I was hoping that the lack of pampering would be good for starting the hardening off process.

Now that I'm back in Wisconsin my life is as exciting and hectic as ever. Here's a short list of some of the things that have happened in the last week and a half:

My luna moth eggs from Moth #3 hatched a few days ago! They are tiny little guys but they are doubling in size just about every day. I've been feeding them white birch leaves harvested from my in-laws' tree. I've tried to feed them some other types of tree leaves, but they seem to go for the white birch only. They are still living in a plastic take-out container until they are big enough to put in an aquarium. Will post pictures soon. I find it interesting that there are two kinds of caterpillars -- some are more black than green and some more green than black. I have no idea why.

Despite the fear that my houseplants would wither in my absence, they seemed to do well without being misted or watered for almost 8 days. I am officially hardening off my vegetable seedlings from the east-facing greenhouse in my kitchen in a shadier spot in my backyard. It's exciting, but a little sad -- my house is nearly empty of plants as I get ready to move them outdoors, and I miss them being in my kitchen! I am keeping a few things indoors, i.e. the flats of spinach I have growing on my kitchen counters.

I've got several projects going at once in my yard -- one of them involved taking two of the cherry tomato seedlings planted in February (they're tall -- maybe 18 inches to two feet!) and planting them in hanging baskets upside down. I'll have to explain that idea at a later date, but let's just say I invented my own version of the "topsy turvy tomato planter" and I'm optimistic that it's going to work out well. I might even try my technique with other plants, maybe strawberries or spinach.

Yesterday while weeding one of my square foot gardens I found a single morel mushroom growing amid the weeds. Steve took several pictures (I hope to post them soon) and then we put a large mason jar over the mushroom to let it grow a bit more before we decide whether we're going to saute it in butter and enjoy or figure out if it's worth learning the complicated process of propagating this delicacy.

I got some fun mother's day goodies, including three books on composting (The Complete Compost Gardening Guide, Worms Eat My Garbage and Let It Rot! The Gardener's Guide to Composting), a really nifty, super cheap hand-crank paper shredder I hope to use to shred newspaper for composting and a wooden mortar and pestle for making hummus and other similar foods by hand. I may write reviews of these things once my gardens are planted, the mulch is spread, and I have more time on my hands.

Now I have tons of catching up to do. My hardwood mulch from Mavroff the Mulch Man in Waukesha was delivered on Monday. 8 cubic yards! That is one big mulch mountain on my driveway. Between that and my unfinished daylily removal project, unplanted gardens and the rain moving in tonight, I really need to get my act together. Back to the gardens!

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!

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: