Well, he's not actually a worm! We had friends over the other day and saw this amazing looking creature on the porch. After examining him for a little, Teresa went in search of more and sure enough, there was a second one crawling through the grass!
We did a quick google search for: "Green worm with colorful spikes" and there it was, the cecropia moth. This is North America's largest native moth with a wing span of 5-7 inches!!! These big caterpillars spin a silk cocoon and overwinter. They will hatch in early summer into this large moth. The moth has no mouth and will simply mate, lay eggs, then die. A new batch of these guys will be born and in August and September they will be mature enough to form their cocoons.
We brought Herman inside and the first night, sure enough, he spun his cocoon. We'll store him in the barn for the winter, sprinkling him with snow and hopefully next summer we'll get to see this amazing moth emerge.
No comments:
Post a Comment