Wednesday, June 2, 2010

A Surprise!

This Spring I came upon this *egg sac thingy* and had no idea what it was. I have an irrational spider fear and that was all I was envisioning, one big spider or four million tiny ones.

Over the weekend I had my family over and was taking a walk around the property with my mom, looking at all the plants. I took her to see the sac and I was shocked to see what was there!

That morning, a Cecropia or Robin Moth had just emerged from their cocoon!

I had never seen anything like it! We gathered everyone around to see this beautiful creature. It was gently fanning it's wings to dry them out and fill them up with blood.

This moth is the largest moth in North America.

The next morning I went to bring the compost out and went to take a photo of the empty cocoon and was met with another surprise.


A male Cecropia had found the female from yesterday and they were mating.

They continued mating all day long. I guess if you only mate once in your life, make it a good one!

7 comments:

meemsnyc said...

That is so cool! Beautiful!

NAK and The Residents of The Khottage Now With KhattleDog! said...

That is INCREDIBLE!

As they say, timing timing timing!

Thanks for sharing that!

Cat with a Garden said...

Seriously amazing. They must be SO big. Just look at those furry legs and the big body. Wow. So much better than a load of spiders... : )

Tama-Chan, Benny, Vidock, Violette, Ollie, Heloise, Momo, Ryu said...

Absolutely stunning, Danica!

Miss Lizzy said...

This is just amazing! I think moths and butterflies are just fascinating. How lucky you are to have stumbled across this and witness something so special!

JB's Big and Small Worlds said...

Wow, that is amazing! Great pics!
--JB

Pedro said...

Khyra told us about your moth visitor. So cool! My mom found one of those this week too and we posted about it! What a co-inky-dink!

Pedro

Post a Comment