We found out our caterpillar is a Cecropia, or Robin moth. EDITED: We misidentified our caterpillar. It is a Hyalophora Columbia. Read more here. Eventually it will look like this.
Pretty neat, right? You may remember when we found it last Sunday it looked like this.
Well, right now it looks like this.
The moth started spinning silk early Wednesday morning. Just a few hours later it was done. It will take a whole year before the moth will emerge, only to live 7 to 10 days. This site at WormSpit was the most informative showing photos of each step of the life cycle of the Cecropia moth.
One interesting tidbit – of all the sites we looked at none showed any sightings in Nevada for the Cecropia. We will be sending in our photos as well as other data so that Nevada can now be marked with Cecropia sightings. So fun to be a part of science!
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that is crazy it takes so long and lives so short. i used to teach preschool and get butterflies every year, i was so amazed at how they had to come out of the chrysalis and dry and pump their wings, if you help them they will never fly. such a good analagy for adversity!
Wow, I’ll stop complaining on how fast time flies and there my life won’t be long enough, no matter how long I live!
Sorry but that caterpillar . . . shiver . . . can’t believe that I used to love playing with them
The same day you posted the pic of the caterpillar we saw one also- only we live in Virginia. They definitely look different from the caterpillars we usually see crawling around. I thought it interesting that we both found these unusual (to me) caterpillars, so far apart geographically.
Love your blog!
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That is so neat you found one in your state to report a sighting. My girl loves all things butterflies and moths, so she would think that is pretty cool, but don’t know about the patience in waiting for the moth to come out in a year, it was hard enough waiting the almost two weeks for the swallowtail butterfly caterpillar we found in our backyard 🙂
This is so awesome!…so where are we on the BIG project???
What a beautiful Moth. That is a great science lesson (takes a long time, but great)
We are raising tadpoles into frogs and it is taking a long time, but not a year! 🙂
Have you read, “A Girl of the LImberlost” by Gene Stratton Porter? — If not, you should. You might need multiple copies for you and your girls!!
You find the neatest things!
In Nevada, I’m betting that you have Hyalophora columbia, a Columbia or Glover’s Silkmoth. The caterpillars look a lot alike.
Last week, we found a tobacco hornworm chewing away on the tomato plants. We collected it and made it at home in a jar. My daughter carried “Callie” around for two days, feeding it more tomato plant leaves (much to Daddy’s dismay since she hacked a poor tomato plant) and watching it eat. Those suckers can really chew! Callie’s now in her pupa…we await her moth reveal.
Oh, that is so cool. What a rare delight! I got to see a Cecropia once. It reminded me too of A Girl of the Limberlost.
Another great book about a girl, science, and making a scientific discovery is The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate. We are reading it to our three girls right now and they love it if I read it in my “Texas” accent. It is a Newberry Honor book. Your story about your moth totally reminds me of this story! Congrats on your discovery 🙂
That is so cool, even if you started with the wrong name 🙂