Eggs layed July 12, 2010
1993 series:
1993 series:
Friday, July 15, 2011
The Eggs Are Here!
My friend Viki over at Watchin' Fur Fly emailed me the other day to say she had found a Royal Walnut Moth (citheronia regalis) and that it had layed eggs and did I want the eggs. Oh boy did I! Little did she know that the RWM is my favorite insect and I raised them from egg to adult as my senior project in one of my environment science classes in college. At that time digital photography was just being developed and the equipment too expensive for my budget. I documented the project at that time with my old Olympus OM-1 camera; a totally manual camera and still one of my favorites. Anyway this time around I am excited to have digital camera and video and hope to be successful once again with hatching the eggs and rearing the larva (named Hickory Horned Devil) to pupa to adult emerge next spring. Funny thing about all this- I had just mentioned to Andrew when we were on our insect outing at Clear Creek last Sunday that I would love to get a hold of some eggs of the RWM so we could do a photo essay on the lifecycle. They are not all that easy to come by.
Eggs
Larva (43 days old and near pupation) @ 6 inches long
Pupa
Adult-palm of the hand size with wings spread.
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2 comments:
We see these occasionally here on the farm. In fact, I just saw a piece of wing at the rabbitry door byesterday before I read Vici's post.
Wish I knew what was eating these large moths - it happens to our Luna Moths, too. Is it an owl? Most often the wings are in a pile under our barnyard light.
WV - slamifi - as in, if I knew what was eating our giant moths, I'd like to slamifi it!
I'll watch with great anticipation! The digital images are sooooooooo much more detailed! And as Lisa said, it's a puzzlement as to why we aren't seeing these giants now a day? Very sad!!! So much beauty!
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