LOVELY LUNA Life Cycle Complete!

July 4th, 2010

What a wonderful way to mark the 4th of July!

Independence Day this year is marked by the completion of the Lovely Luna Life Cycle!

It all began on May 1st when a group from Del Tech was netting bats for a study on our local Big Brown Bats. We had the blessing and good fortune of a large Luna Moth getting caught in the net. I took it home with me and it turned out to be a female who laid some eggs over the next few nights.

About 10 days later they began emerging from their eggs and readily started eating Sweet Gum leaves which I had read were a good food source.

After a couple of weeks the caterpillars were eating way more leaves than I could provide so I decided to switch them to walnut leaves which were larger and more plentiful. They made the change easily and kept on eating until mid June, going through several instars. Finally, they started rolling up some leaves to make their cocoons for their Marvelous METAMORPHOSIS!

It seems like forever to wait, but it took about 2 weeks. I went out to the porch this afternoon and there in their enclosure was the first Luna Moth to emerge!

It's a male and I'm calling him my Yankee Doodle Dandy because he was born on July 4th!! I hope to have several more emerge to contribute to the Luna Moth population here in the White Clay Creek area.