bunches were hatched this morning. Here is a great link on them. http://www.wormspit.com/pernyi.htm
Antheraea Pernyi
Whoa! Aren't those little fellas cute!
Donna - They seem like they will be fascinating cats/butterflies to watch and document! Do take plenty of photos! Inquiring minds want to see more! Beautiful moths as adults!
What do they eat?
Edited to add ....
Ah duh...... I guess I was so busy looking at the photos on that web link that I didn't read any of it. It says Oak tree leaves are what it eats as a host plant. I have two large Oak trees in my yard. I wonder if I get these moths in my area? We get the Antheraea polyphemu Moths here, but not the one you have:
http://www.butterfliesandmoths.org/species?l=3290&chosen_state=12*Florida
This message was edited May 27, 2007 9:26 PM
there are eating Oak. Don't ask me which oak lol
Great!!! Loved the link. Will be waiting and watching your own photo doc.
Thanks again for sharing!!!
~ Cat
day 3
Awwww ..... aren't they too cute! Great thread, Donna!
I just hope to raise them to eclosing. It will break my heart if i kill them
Donna-
I totally understand how you feel on that one. I really have a hard time when they don't make it. How'd you find these guys anyway??
~Adrienne
counted them tonight and I have 34 hatched out of 40 eggs
Me too Donna!
What a cute cat (neat freckles), and of course the Polyphemus is a beautiful moth. I especially liked the backlit pic on the site... bullet holes. What an amazing creature! Hope they do well, best of luck!
:-D
7 days old and starting to pupate to a lighter colored cat.
:-) I like it! Too cool! Ya got it going on in your cages, Donna! Nice variety of cats you are raising! Great photos to show all of us! :-)
Great photo!!! I love the look of all those little chewed out pieces of leaf :o) You've got some good nibblers there.
~ Cat
they do eat good. I put half of them in the luna container since I put the Luna in the big cage
still happily munching with no losses or cocooning yet. Will post pics later
these are hard to take pics of. They all look blurry to me lol
pic 2
pic 3 no cocoons yet. They are now 25 days old. I have 21 of them. They are only about 1/2 the size of the Luna Cats
This message was edited Jun 21, 2007 6:42 PM
up date!!! They are still eating and as huge as the Luna were so I looked at the worm spit website and from what I can tell they don't start cocooning until 45 days old. Hopefully about the 13th of July they should start cocooning for me
just look at that cute freckled face
3rd pic
Great photos!!! Very awesome looking...cute but scary as I'd never seen one of those before.
Thanks for sharing!!!
~ Cat
ROFL about the freckled face! A face only a mother could love! LOL! Great photos!
LOL...I was laughing about the freckled face, too. Toooo cute. : )
yea they are finally cocooning but in the top of the cage lol
this one at least snagged a piece of leaf for his
That's so neat how they do that. : )
~Lucy
NIce to see them going so well Donna :-)!! Very cute freckle faces!!
:-D
here is a good shot of the cocoon. They just pull a little leaf over the top of them
Oh my gosh, Donna! You should add that to bugfiles!!! Great one!! :-)
well I had 2 males eclose I found at midnight
this one is doomed. He spun so much excess silk and then cocooned away from it but with it he got trapped when he came out of the cocoon. See cocoon top right and all the silk below and going left
I ripped him out as soon as I found him but it is to late. His wings didn't open
Oh that's too bad about the one, Donna... Actually some of the butterflies I raised had an eclosure accident, and the wings took a about a day to iron out, but it did. I sprayed one down with mist as soon as I realized. It seemed to help. I thought it was a gonner, then I saw him fliting around chasing females a couple days later.
How many more cocoons are left?
about 14, will have to count them. another eclosed a couple of hours ago so I have 3 males now
my 3rd male
they are so pretty
this is to cool. See through spots
see the green through the spots on the right coming from the plant
