Cecropia Moths Emerge

Over the Memorial Day weekend the Cecropia Moths that my family had been keeping finally emerged from their caccoons.

The story begins last summer when Sharon Stichter gave my mother a few dozen Cecropia Moth caterpillars from her last brood. The Cecropia is a large silkworm moth in the family Saturniidae. They are heavily parasitized by wasps and other insects so some nature lovers have started raising them in capitivity to protect the species.

As caterpillars, the moths are eating machines. Their main food plant is Cherry and as soon as we put them on the leaves our caterpillars started eating right away. They grew fast and we were constantly forced to go on searches for new cherry branches to harvest. The caterpillars even came with us on vacation. After several weeks they were large enough to spin their caccoons for the long winter slumber.

That brings us to the last few weeks. The first moths emerged on the Friday before Memorial Day. They immediately started mating and laying eggs. Out of 29 caccoons we've had 22 moths (as of right now). We've kept a few eggs for next year but we've also released many of the moths at different sites in Central Massachusetts. But before we let them go, I took a few pictures. You can find them on my Moths page.