Thursday, June 02, 2005

Mating Moths


Mating Moths
Originally uploaded by Tricia D.
We've been raising silkworms. After a brownie meeting in late April, my daughter shows up with a bunch of silkworms. Unfortunately I didn't get a picture of those but they came to us in all sizes. We took very good care of those silkworms, finding mulberry leaves to feed them so within a few weeks, they began to make the cocoons. We had white ones and yellow ones and we were all very excited.

And then one hatched and we had this scary moth with glasses thing in our house. It didn't move much but we took it outside but after a particularly bad windy spell, I felt sorry for the moth so I brought it back inside. By this time, another one had hatched and they found each other. It was love (and babies) at first site.

A third one hatched and it sat around waiting for a mate. But numbers 4 and 5 hatched close together and found each other leaving #3 to lay eggs but those are probably sad sad eggs that won't live.

Meanwhile, the first set of eggs (along with the parents) went back outside, under the orange tree. Not that that will do them anygood so they eventually flew off leaving the eggs. My daughter, being a good silkworm rescuerer put the eggs in the fridge.

I think next spring we're going to be raising silkworms again!

2 comments:

Bev Sykes said...

Cool! Looks good. I see not only did you find a way to add photos, but also the flicker zeitgeist. Good!

Anonymous said...

Hi! Nice place ya got here!! :) Do the moths stay in a tank? I'm wondering how you get them in and outside. I'd be worried about hurting their wings. Also, I'm not sure I ever saw moths mating before, so the picture is a little confusing. At what point are they connected? It looks like their wings are just touching...Or are they just doing something over the eggs?