Flying Porterhouse Steaks: Cecropia Moths in Flight

At least, that’s how I imagine birds must view the cecropia moths….”Hey, look at that, Feathers, it’s a HUGE flying dinner! That ought to stuff the kiddies full!”

What?! Can’t I anthropomorphize a bit?

Anyway….

The moths have been emerging steadily with the current count at 3 females and 5 males. They all seem to emerge between 11 a.m. and Noon. By about 6 p.m., their wings are hardened enough to fly off if they choose. Of course, when they first come out of the cocoon, their wings are as fragile as wet tissue paper.

Oh, in case you do decide to have them emerge inside, you will want to put something below the cocoon, as they do empty their gut of all the wastes they have stored up over the winter. Yeah, it’s pretty smelly!

I was surprised that you can’t really tell which cocoon they emerged out of at first glance. Somehow, I pictured more carnage…kind of like Christmas Day with kids ripping open packages.

But, they manage to wriggle out a VERY tiny hole in the end of the cocoon and leave it intact. If you open the empty cocoon up, you can see the shed pupal case (complete with waste in the bottom that was squeezed out as the moth emerged…you are forewarned!).

I still have about 10 left that are sitting in the box. I’m wondering if they just didn’t make it. Here are some photos of the female vs the male antennae:

Female above

Male above

I think there may have been something amiss with the latest female, as she and 2 males emerged on the same day. I expected the males to flock around here, but they ignored her and flew off. When I looked at her more closely, it appears she may have damaged herself emerging from her cocoon.

Here is a picture of her abdomen and then the close-up of what looks like a rip:

 A rip? She never flew (although she does pump her wings) and is still sitting alone in the lilac bush tonight, poor thing.

I just love it that these moths look like they are covered in shag carpeting, too!

And look at this beautiful wing pattern:

UPDATE: Turns out the female was O.K. I came back the next day to find her mating, so it looks like everything worked out for her. She did not lay her eggs on the lilac bush, though (whcih is good, because I really need to trim it back this year).

Also, 3 more males & 2 females emerged, leaving only 3 left in the box.

Emergence! One Cecropia Moth, Finally!

Wheeee!

I did a little happy dance today (trust me, be glad you didn’t see it) when I peered into my box-o-cocoons and discovered this:

Success! A cecropia moth! Well, OK, it’s only one but it means a lot to me (and, I suspect, to the moth…).

There she was (I’m pretty sure it was a female, as it looked full of eggs and had smaller antennae), just sitting there slowly pumping her wings.

So beautiful!

I took her outside to show my husband (out in the garage) and as soon as the sun hit her she started to “shiver” in an effort to get things ready for takeoff. Sure enough, in another minute she leapt off the leaf and into the air soaring straight for the trees.

It was really amazing to watch. I hope she gets a chance to mate and lay eggs before becoming someone’s dinner (to a bird, she must look like a big, juicy porterhouse steak…).

sigh.

Dead Moth Sleeping: Cecropia Moth News

So, I just finished reading a wonderful book by Bernd Heinrich:

Summer World: A Season of Bounty

(although, not everyone agrees with my view of the book)

It had a nice bit about cecropia moths, although the news was not too encouraging. The bottom line is that very, very, very few cecropia moths ever manage to complete their entire lifecycle.

He mentions that each female cecropia moth lays from 200 to 400 eggs but that most of the larvae that do manage to hatch die. The ratio given in the book for live moths to live larvae was one moth per 100 larvae.

According to Heinrich, parasitic flies and wasps account for the bulk of the larvae deaths. Interestingly, those predators are then often parasitised themselves and then those are parasitised (referred to as a hyper-hyper-parasitoid wasp). Which makes me think of:

“So nat’ralists observe, a flea

Hath smaller fleas that on him prey,

And these have smaller fleas that bite ‘em,

And so proceed ad infinitum.”

(As a side note, I was curious about the link to “turtles all the way down” and now want to get a t-shirt with that on it….possibly a job for Endangered Ugly Things?)

Anyway, Heinrich’s book gave a lot of good information on cecropia moths and I would highly advise reading that part if you are planning on rearing these moths. (His moths emerged at the very start of June, but I am still waiting on mine to emerge….stay tuned!)

I hope I get moths and not parasitic wasps/flies…

So. Very. Wrong!!!

I found this from reading little red boat and then onto A Lard Off My Mind:

So, there’s a candy bar called Fling chocolate fingers, which in itself is disturbing…

“How many flavors and sizes of FLING™ are there?

Milk Chocolate is available in a Single Pack of two fingers and a Multi-pack of 10 individually-wrapped fingers. Dark Chocolate and Hazelnut are only available everyday in Multi-pack cartons with 10 individually-wrapped fingers.”

BUT THEN…

in what is possibly the worst combination of words (and you just know the marketing whiz who thought of it was all a-titter at how clever he was) comes this sentence:

“Then you can pleasure yourself with this chocolate sensation time and time again.”

Um.

No.

What’s the Russian word for “spam”?

Is anyone else getting a boatload of Russian spam lately? It seems very odd….

Ch-ch-ch-changes! (Cecropia Moth Update)

Things are definately happening inside the cecropia moth cocoons!

Most of them are strapped on to the lilac bush outside (held in place with plastic wire ties around the branches NOT the cocoons) but a few are still left in my inside cage. I took a good look at the outside ones today and they are looking swollen and…well, just different. I think they will emerge any day (night) now.

The ones inside will probably not emerge as soon, but I do hear sounds of movement coming from within them. Wheee! I really hope I can get a nice picture of them before I release them.

In the meantime, please enjoy this short time lapse video giving you an idea of what’s happening inside their silky cocoons:

Over Booked

Who am I kidding?

I just stacked up all the library books I have checked out right now (and that’s NOT counting the books on CD) and there is no way I will ever finish all of these.

Sometimes, I think all I am really doing is just moving books around from the library to home and back again….like a crazy courier service.

Well, at least I don’t buy as many this way….

Found Under the Reference Desk

(OK, maybe it wasn’t THIS dusty, but it was kinda nasty under there….cool photo by Oslo In the Summertime).

Spring cleaning fever has hit the library and we cleaned out the various shelves and cubbies around the Reference Desk.

Besides the chewed pencil stubs (eeew!) and copulating rubberbands (look away!), I also found some old papers from last year’s summer reading club. They were short stories that kids wrote just for the fun of it. So, to lighten the blog mood, I am going to share them with you…

This one has a Seusical quality about it:

Bug in My Mug

There is a bug in my mug! A bug in my mug!   The bug in my mug is blue and I don’t think it has a clue. Maybe it knows me or you!

And an action-drama story:

My Stiches[sic]

One day, I went on a bike ride. And we were riding and riding when we left my Gramas house we got ice crem. I got mint colitcip and an extra scoop. On the ride home grass was on the sidwalk.

I was going vary fast on that sidwalk. I went out of controll. I fall off my bike I crashed too hard. My hands did not come down when I hit the grown. I got 5 booboos and my chin split. I was crying but not hard, but a volunter fire fighter came over and gave me pads for my chin.

I had to go to the hosptol. When I got there I saw more injuries {the original word was erased and rewritten by an adult hand}. One girl was bleeding from her head. It was my turn the nurse was vary nice. Win the doctor came in he said I have to get stiches. It was hard but I got throw it and that was my story and it is true. I realy have stiches on my chin.                                          

And a poem to finish off (in celebration of National Poetry Month!):

                                          High, high, fly

One day I saw a spider fly.

I couldn’t believe my eyes.

Then I saw a dog fly high, high in the sky,

But when I came back they were gone.

And now no one has ever seen then since.

So every leap year,

Check for the spider and dog.

The End.

The BEST part, though, is the coda at the bottom of the page that says:

“Cool facts: This poem was made in 2008. This is a poem that anyone can use at anytime. You can write a poem anywhere. Just use your amagenatin and rhimying.”

I Have No Words

Last Saturday, we had to say “goodbye” to our dog. Although I would have liked to write a wonderful blog memorial to her, I find I simply cannot and also that my husband has already done so much better than I ever could.

So, I love you, Bear and you will be so missed.

Garden Outlook: Abandon All Hope!

(rent-a-moose’s cool photo)

OK, so I went to a basic organic gardening class today. This was at the same place I recently went to learn how to make jelly from scratch and can it in glass jars (yes, I am feeling ambitious lately so it must be spring).

So, I thought this would be a pleasant little gathering of like-minded people. People who, like me, wanted to grow backyard veggies but were completely clueless or, in my case, just completely hapless.

My usual spring garden cycle goes like this:

1. Garden catalogs arrive with their sweet siren song in late winter.
2. Blinded by pretty colors and big ambitions, I order seeds & plants.
3. Seeds arrive and I dutifully tend them in their teeny planter.
4. Yea, they sprouted! Look at them go!
5. Well, crap! Over half of them bit the dust.
6. Double crap! More are dying…no worries, I have some that made it.
7. Plant the ones that made it and care for them.
8. Aaaagh! Why did they die?! OK, I’ll focus on the few left…
9. Weed garden, tend plants.
10. Weed garden, tend plants.
11. Get lazy, go on vacation, see something shiny…
12. Blkkkrk! Where did all these weeds come from suddenly?!
13. Renew weeding with vengeance.
14. Realize the weeds are winning no matter what I do.
15. Rationalize failure (well, I’m just being a very natural gardener, yeah…uh, I’m returning valuable nutrients to the soil by letting them all rot there…right, and I am helping out all those groundhogs and rabbits).

In order to break this cycle, I decided to take the intro to organic gardening class. Again, I thought, “Hey, maybe we can all share some silly gardening stories and bond over our interest in organic thingies and whatnot.” But, alas, it was not to be.

Maybe it was the gloomy, cold weather, but the majority of the people were none too friendly. Now, I’m not altogether a great people person…well, if you are above age 20 that is. I am much more comfortable around kids (hence the children’s librarian…) and although I can do great stuff when I am in “Librarian” mode at work, I really suck at interpersonal skills.

I really tried to make an effort to be outgoing. I smiled (but not TOO smiley…don’t want to give off that stalker vibe) and attempted to make conversation with my fellow classmates. And I even showered before the class

This is about how it went:

Me: “So, how did your soil sample turn out?” ::said companionably::

     ==stony silence==

Me: “Er…so, is your soil very alkaline?” ::said louder::

     ==stony silence AND cold glare==

And then there was OOOTBPG (Obviously One Of The Beautiful People Girl). I mean, who comes to a hands-on gardening class wearing ultra-low jeans (we all saw way more of her than we wanted), designer shoes and expensive shades tilted back on their head?! OOOTBPG clearly felt she was just so darn cute that she could cut in front of everyone waiting in line (OK, it was a line for worms and not a bread line…but still!).

OOOTBP also annoyingly kept saying POE-tash instead of POT-ash like all the rest of us Midwesterners. I will, however, give her credit for at least willingly handling worms and dirt. There were several ladies there who were aghast at the mere thought. So, what kind of gardening were they planning on doing exactly?

The results of my soil sample from the backyard were pretty horrid:

highest possible alkalinity, lowest possible nitrogen, potash and phosphorus and clay soil

Hmmm, maybe I should just stick to making jelly….