Congrats on your female, Sandy! They are INDEEED huge!!
If your female doesn't get a suitor tonight, you can certainly leave here in the hamper until tomorrow night - one of my female lunas didn't get a mate until the second night.
Do you want to raise some more? If so, then you can put the female in a paper grocery bag, and she'll lay some eggs in there, probably more than you want or are able to raise. It's a dilemma - my female laid so many eggs in the bag, I cut out lots of them and attached them to sweetgum trees with clothes pins, and I'm still raising about ?60 or more now. Put the female in the bag just before dark, which would be her regular egg laying time. You can release her after you get the eggs, and she can finish laying in the woods.
Of course, if you don't want to raise any cecropias, you can just let her fly off the night after she's mated. You might still find a few eggs here and there that she accidentally spilled on the hamper, it always happens with my big female moths.
Mary Ann King said she was going to the Tulsa event in an e-mail today - sounds interesting!
Sherry

If she doesn't call in a mate in the hamper, I'd put her in the greenhouse. I visited a friend once who had Promethea moths (males) dancing around his greenhouse. There was a female inside scenting.

Are you and Mary Ann corresponding? You two have a lot of years of experience with growing for wildlife. She has good quality plants for the prices she charges. A lot of the host plants will have cats on them. I've purchased quite a few plant from her over the years. I know I got my first pipevine from her. I'd place orders on the computer and she would deliver them at the tour. This evening she brought 4 pipevines and each one had a caterpillar on it. Talk about some thrilled customers.

I don't correspond with her regularly, just about my orders. I thought I'd be getting my latest order on Thursday, but it'll be next week, she said. She said things had been real busy, and she was going to Tulsa.
I love that there are people who have native plant, mail order nurseries, and she has an extra great one!
Sherry

Years ago, I would just put my female cecropias on the side of my house. They did not go anywhere. The next morning, I'd have a mating couple. Sometimes, I'd take them off the house and put them inside. Sometimes, I'd wait until dusk, lightly bother the male, he would disengage and I'd grab the female. This worked for a couple years until the birds figured out I was serving breakfast, which forced me to come up with my current birdcage laced with yarn.

I'd say your greenhouse idea sounds like a winner. I have a friend that puts her female moths in her shed and leaves the shed door open. She goes out in the morning and collects what she finds.

My experience is mating cecropias stay engaged if you handle them in the morning so don't worry too much about moving a pair around. This advice doesn't hold for all moths, polyphemus in particular.

My cecropias started eclosing this week. I've had the same female out for the past four nights but the only male that has shown up was a confused male polyphemus. I had problems attracting cecropia males last year too which makes me wonder about how the wild population is doing. I had three more females eclose today so I'll put the fresh ones out tonight in my moth bordello ;)

KC

Moth bordello, huh?! LOL

Well, I set the hamper out by the side of my house. I clipped a piece of cheesecloth to the top. This morning when I went outside, the hamper was on its side, and I just knew she had escaped. Not so! A male had found her, and they are still coupled this evening. I took them to the Audubon BY tour and shared them with all the people who visited the garden where I was stationed. Nothing fazed the pair.

If anyone reads this, should I leave them coupled until they decide they've had enough?

Paper sack is next. I'll keep you updated.

Sandy

I'd leave them alone and let them decide when they're done.
My lunas are in their last instars, and I'm running my legs off gathering sweet gum leaves, hosing them down with the sprayer in my sink, cleaning their cages, etc. For your sake, Sandy, I hope you get her out of the bag before she lays too many eggs in it - cecropias eat even more than lunas!
Sherry

The Cecropias, I named them Celeste and Cecil, separated when it got dark. I let Cecil go so he could find another female. And I put Celeste in a paper sack. I checked, and there are eggs! I am getting ready to release her, as I have all the eggs I can raise plus some for friends.

Sherry, I remember how much they eat, and you have to feed them for a month+. Are you interested in eggs?

Here is a photo of the couple.

Here is a link that might be useful: Celeste and Cecil

Congrats on getting eggs, Sandy! They are cool-looking caterpillars!

Thanks for the offer, Sandy, but I'm still not through with the lunas, plus I'm feeding a good many butterfly cats - RAs, QMs, ALs, palamedes swallowtails and red-spotted purples. I don't think I can handle any more big moths for a while.
Sherry

Sandy,

As you know I read some of the threads now and then even though IÂm not logged in anymore. But I just had to log on when I saw this thread by you this morning as it made me smile.

Naming your lady Cercropia Celeste brings up a little story About 35 years ago while collecting at a place called LambÂs Canyon high on the east slope of the Rockies in Utah my ex, "Celeste", who was up the canyon a ways from me out of sight let out a scream that could raise the dead (and as it turned out stopped all plant growth in the canyon for two years). I dropped and ran thinking she had fallen off a cliff, stepped on a rattlesnake, was being eaten by a bear or ???. Found her happily picking last instar H. cercropia cats off what little was left of a fair sized Populus tremuloides tree. All this ruckus from a normally dignified, quiet and reserved lady over a few cats? She had reared hundreds of Cercropia that I brought home before and from home mating, but these were the first of their cats she had ever found on her own out in nature. BTW, I went through similar with each new (for her) discovered species every place we traveled to. I once told her an earthquake in California was probably her fault because we were collecting up on Mount Tantalus in Hawaii when she found her first "wild" Vanessa tameamea cats the same day that California shook.

My standard "calling" set up for the big silk moth females was a 3# coffee can cut open on both ends, 1" square hardware cloth covering the ends, and a wire or heavy twine bail that allowed the can to be hung horizontal from tree branches, etc anyplace I wanted to hang them. Cercropia is a species that mostly flies in the later wee hours of the night before day break, so they do not need to be out in the heat of the day and first light is a good time to check the cages for suitors. Along the lines of what Sherry said, they can be moved to a quiet place and left to separate on their own. I liked to lightly spray paper bags with clean water before putting a single female in each bag, then position the bags close to a light source on one side. This same "technique" works well for placing a male and female in the same bag to mate. The bags sure make it easy to cut the ovum apart in batches for either raising, distributing in nature or sharing with friends.

All for now gangÂ

Larry

To me, the most important thing to come out of this thread and your original thread is that cecropia cats can be successfully raised to adult using buttonbush (Cephalanthus occidentalis). It is a plant I've seen listed as a cecropia hostplant only on the HOSTS database, and you really cannot trust those hostplant lists. Your proving that it works will allow me to spread my cecropias onto another hostplant when my buttonbushes get big enough to use.

KC

And just to be clear, I had no clue that ladobe's post even existed when I posted. I don't want anyone thinking my post was some kind of response to Larry's.

That said, I am very happy to see Larry's post. I definitely miss your knowledge/wisdom/humor.

When I'm out caterpillar hunting with my wife and she lets out a blood curdling scream, I know it is because she has seen the "extremely dangerous" praying mantis :D

KC

Larry,

I loved your story. I didn't know how appropriate "Celeste" was until I read your post.

I have found some places that want the eggs, namely local nature parks. So, when the eggs hatch, I will take the caterpillars to the different places. Some I will probably place on host plants, and some I will share with the centers so others can see them. Celeste left me about 100 eggs in a very short time. She was extremely tired and let me hold her perched on my finger. I tried to take some good photos, but the light source at 11:00 p.m. isn't the best.

KC, Glad you learned something from the post! Buttonbush was a good food source. The leaves did pretty well at staying fresh until they were eaten. I put them in water and left the cats out on the kitchen counter until they were ready to pupate. I just disinfected and cleaned up the humongous frass daily.

Larry, like KC, I miss your humor. Thanks.

Sandy

KC,

Actually Cephalanthus has been a known and used LFP for H. cecropia (and other silk moth species) for many years. I never used it becasue it didn't occur naturally where I lived. But sometime I think in the 80's Mike Smith told me of using it out in CA, as did Leroy Simon in FL. And I discussed it and many others at great length with Steve Stone when I was staying at his home on a collecting trip to CO with him, Paul Opler and Andy Warren a few years later while he was putting the final touches on his book on the LFP's of the worlds Saturniidae. Internet data base lists aside, if you are into rearing the Saturniidae I strongly suggest you pick up a copy of Steve's book. I know Steve and many of the contributors of his data personally and have done field work or rearing studies with many of them. I doubt a more accurate list of their LFP's is available.

Sandy, I don't know how approriate Celeste is except in our minds. Since they are sometimes called Robin Moths, "Robin" for boys and "Robyn" for girls kind of fits. So if you pair Robin with Robyn, what do your call the kids? I know - F2, F3, F4 etc... LOL

BTW, my above post should read "west" slope, not east (the brain and fingers don't always work together well now days).

Larry

The Cecropias are growing. Today I got photos of one Cecropia right after molting. I've included some new photos and the link to the Hyalophora Cecropia Gallery on pbase. There are now 19 photos documenting the life cycle of the Cecropia.

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Here is a link that might be useful: Hyalophora cecropia

That's impressive Sandy! You're making it hard for me to keep my lep thing casual and low maintenance.

randy

Thanks, Randy. It's still casual. I keep too busy with raising plants for Farmer's Mkt. The heat is getting to me, so when I can take a break and catch a shot, I welcome it.

Sandy

Last year, I had a 7.5" female eclose. This is one of her kids that just eclosed. Not quite as big as mom but still very beautiful.

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