You beat me to the punch. Last summer I raised about 50 Cecropias from eggs that came from a female I had overwintered from the previous year. They ate so much once large, that I had to release over half of them onto my Kwazan cherry tree to fend for themselves. The other half I let pupate in my garage. Tuesday, my dad found an adult female scrunched up against a shrub in the morning. She came from the cherry tree. I brought her in and am hoping for another cocoon to hatch out a boy for her. I was worried because she seems kind of early. Last year it was not until June that they eclosed. But now, since you told me all yours did, I won't be so worried. I remember, last year it took about two nights for the male and female that I had to mate. They they stayed attached for about 24 hours. Then I got eggs. They are awesome and beautiful creatures! If anyone wants, I'll post some pics. Maryann

Congrats, tiffy, lunas are easily my favorite moth! Your boy (at least I think it's a male) is gorgeous - there are so few green moths and/or butterflies! We all love to help people successfully raise their leps here on the forum - I'm so glad everything turned out well! Sherry

Keeping the pupae out of the sun, occasionally hydrate it by bathing it in cool water will help. Like Molanic, I often keep mine in the fridge in a Glad container on paper towel and take it out once a month or so to give it a bath. It is essential to keep them somewhat hydrated in order to avoid dessication. When day and night temps are warmer in later spring/early summer, bring them outdoors in a container with air holes and some sticks they can climb onto when they emerge. They have to hang from the sticks for some time to dry and inflate their wings. This is a good time to get photos of them, too. I only get Hemaris diffinus - Snowberry Clearwing, and their favorite food in my yard is my yellow Honeysuckle. I have Japanese purpurea, but have never found them on this. Another excellent host plant to check is Virginia Creeper. Numerous sphinx moths use it as a larval host, like Eumorpha achemon (Achemon sphinx), Eumorpha pandorus (Pandora sphinx), Darapsis myron (Virginia Creeper sphinx), Amphion floridensis (Nessus sphinx), Deidamis inacriptum (Lettered sphinx), Hyles lineata (White-lined sphinx), and Specodina abbottii (Abbott's sphinx), to name a few. I have raised the first 4 named above, and perhaps one day, I'll find a few others. Good luck and have fun! Susan

Liz, I raise all my butterflies and moths on my porch, which is covered, but not screened in - it's open on three sides. We live in the woods, so the porch is shady, and the cats don't get too hot. I raise the lunas in a big mesh cage on the porch - when they get big, I have to transfer some to another cage, and that's when I'm raising just a couple dozen, like I did this time. I put their sweetgum stems in left overs containers, and it takes up a lot of room. When they emerge from their cocoons, I open the cage doors around 9:00 p.m. and leave it up to them. The males all leave sometime during the night, unless they mate with a female on the porch, in or out of a cage. Some females stay in the cages, some fly off into the woods, and some fly to parts of the porch, like the one in the picture. The mint green female in the picture directly above, next to the yellow male, left the cage and perched at about the same place the one in the first picture landed. Last night, about 10:00 or so, the last time I checked on them, the males were still in the cage, and she was on the ceiling. This morning I found her mated with a male, yellowy, but he could have been any of the three or a wild one or one that emerged a few days ago and flew off into the woods, but came back when he 'heard her calling', I don't know. They'll leave after it gets really dark tonight. One of the females that stayed and mated in the second cage laid a lot of eggs (about 60?) on the bar of the cage, plus some in the mesh. I've retrieved the ones from the mesh, about 30, to raise myself. I think I'm going to find a good stand of sweetgum and tie the bar (I broke the cage down to clean it and replaced the 'eggy' bar with another one) to a branch. I want there to be a big canopy of leaves, where they can travel from one tree to another, with ample leaves available. I can't handle more than about 30 cats - they eat an incredible amount of leaves! Every time I raise lunas, at least one female leaves me some presents! So you can see what the big cage looks like, here's a picture I took of it one year when a whole lot of lunas emerged on the same afternoon - Sherry