I’m going to attempt to raise 412 Luna Moth Caterpillars - Creationism Corner

Did the imperial hatch in the end?

Nice bump, this thread is actually pretty badass.

[QUOTE=Dbuhos;23781610]Nice bump, this thread is actually pretty badass.[/QUOTE] This thread is actually pretty damn weird. It's cool though.

What a magnificent creature :science:

[IMG]http://img826.imageshack.us/img826/5797/lunamothcaterpillaratre.png[/IMG] Amazing read OP, I'm glad someone bumped it because I had not yet read it.

[QUOTE=postal;21124562] Also still waiting on the imperial.[/QUOTE] What happened with the imperial? Did it ever hatch?

Thanks for bumping this. I missed this thread completely.

I saw the original post date and was reving up my internal hate machine to rage at whoever bumped this. But now I am D'awwww. Thanks for bumping this.

[QUOTE=Orkel;23782192]What happened with the imperial? Did it ever hatch?[/QUOTE] Sorry, but no happy ending here. He was parasitized prior to my finding him, thats the problem with giant caterpillars who spend awhile in the caterpillar stage like that, they're hard to miss and stick around for awhile, so wasps have a good chance of finding them. I found a crack and small chip in the shell of the pupa few weeks back. Shined a light in and didn't see anything good, so I opened him up and found three or four wasp cocoons inside of what was left of him. It's pretty neat to see the way these wasps work, even if I only see it when they fuck up the caterpillars i raised. Still, I'm not about to promote a population of them around my house, so I squished 'em :v: I found a large Imperial moth on my porch few nights back as well, but due to the fact I'm gonna be leaving soon I didn't try catching it. Maybe next year. If you guys want some happier news, I found a large polyphemus moth sitting on my front porch awhile back. It was a female so i put it in a paper bag and get some eggs like before with the Luna, only this time I kept just a few. Well, at least i tried to. Interrupting a moth while it's laying eggs proved to be a very bad idea, it went fucking balastic and even latched onto my hand and started laying eggs on my fingers fff so i ended up with a few more eggs than I wanted. I ended up with 15 cocoons in the end and they've been hatching every other day now. Trying to be there when they hatch, but unlike the lunas who hatched at the crack of dawn, these have been hatching at any time from noon to 4 pm, and I've only got about 6 cocoons left so it's unlikely I'll catch it. Still, here's some pics of them [img]http://fc09.deviantart.net/fs70/i/2010/150/f/5/Polyphemus_Caterpillar_hatch_by_postal_crazylegs.jpg[/img] [img]http://fc06.deviantart.net/fs70/i/2010/150/b/5/Polyphemus_pillar_hatch_2_by_postal_crazylegs.jpg[/img] Something really neat that happened was that prior to finding the moth and getting the eggs, i found a near full grown caterpillar outside on a tree. The result was I had newly hatched caterpillars at the exact same time as a fully grown caterpillar, which was rather awesome to see [img]http://fc02.deviantart.net/fs70/i/2010/152/a/a/Polyphemus_caterpillars_3_by_postal_crazylegs.jpg[/img] and here's what they turned in to [img]http://fc04.deviantart.net/fs70/i/2010/214/1/0/polyphemus_moths_by_postal_crazylegs.jpg[/img] I also have another, more special, type of caterpillar I'm raising, but I'm going to wait until their cocoons hatch to post the pics

that is fucking awesome. i wanna do it :(

Absolutely beautiful. I normally don't like insects very much, but these made me go "d'awww".

I want more threads like this from you, postal.

Moths are rad.

I hope OP has another project like this sometime, this thread was one of the best I've read.

Great images, I remember when you created this thread long ago.

[img_thumb]http://fc02.deviantart.net/fs70/i/2010/152/a/a/Polyphemus_caterpillars_3_by_postal_crazylegs.jpg[/img_thumb] That is a beautiful photo. I love this thread.

RIP Imperial :patriot:

This thread is so awesome. Your pictures are beautiful. What kind of camera are you using?

[QUOTE=Deac;23818291]I hope OP has another project like this sometime, this thread was one of the best I've read.[/QUOTE] If all goes well I should have something really fucking awesome for next summer. [QUOTE=Namaste;23818831]This thread is so awesome. Your pictures are beautiful. What kind of camera are you using?[/QUOTE] I had two kinds of cameras for the pictures in this thread. My old one I'll figure out the name of later. The new one is a Canon EOS 40D mostly using a "Canon EF 100mm f/2.8L Macro IS USM lens with Hybrid Image Stabilization" Also quoting this for new page for anyone that missed it: [QUOTE=postal;23813756][QUOTE=Orkel;23782192]What happened with the imperial? Did it ever hatch?[/QUOTE] Sorry, but no happy ending here. He was apparently parasitized prior to my finding him, thats the problem with giant caterpillars who spend awhile in the caterpillar stage like that, they're hard to miss and stick around for awhile, so wasps have a good chance of finding them. I found a crack and small chip in the shell of the pupa few weeks back. Shined a light in and didn't see anything good, so I opened him up and found three or four wasp cocoons inside of what was left of him. It's pretty neat to see the way these wasps work, even if I only see it when they fuck up the caterpillars i raised. Still, I'm not about to promote a population of them around my house, so I squished 'em :v: I found a large Imperial moth on my porch few nights back as well, but due to the fact I'm gonna be leaving soon I didn't try catching it. Maybe next year. If you guys want some happier news, I found a large polyphemus moth sitting on my front porch awhile back. It was a female so i put it in a paper bag and get some eggs like before with the Luna, only this time I kept just a few. Well, at least i tried to. Interrupting a moth while it's laying eggs proved to be a very bad idea, it went fucking crazy and even latched onto my hand and started laying eggs on my fingers fff so i ended up with a few more eggs than I wanted. I ended up with 15 cocoons in the end and they've been hatching every other day now. Trying to be there when they hatch, but unlike the lunas who hatched at the crack of dawn, these have been hatching at any time from noon to 4 pm, and I've only got about 6 cocoons left so it's unlikely I'll catch it. Still, here's some pics of them [img]http://fc09.deviantart.net/fs70/i/2010/150/f/5/Polyphemus_Caterpillar_hatch_by_postal_crazylegs.jpg[/img] [img]http://fc06.deviantart.net/fs70/i/2010/150/b/5/Polyphemus_pillar_hatch_2_by_postal_crazylegs.jpg[/img] Something really neat that happened was that prior to finding the moth and getting the eggs, i found a near full grown caterpillar outside on a tree. The result was I had newly hatched caterpillars at the exact same time as a fully grown caterpillar, which was rather awesome to see [img]http://fc02.deviantart.net/fs70/i/2010/152/a/a/Polyphemus_caterpillars_3_by_postal_crazylegs.jpg[/img] and here's what they turned in to [img]http://fc04.deviantart.net/fs70/i/2010/214/1/0/polyphemus_moths_by_postal_crazylegs.jpg[/img] I also have another, more special, type of caterpillar I'm raising, but I'm going to wait until their cocoons hatch to post the pics[/QUOTE]

Missed a polyphemus moth hatching by about 30 seconds. oh well [img]http://fc02.deviantart.net/fs71/i/2010/222/9/7/Newly_hatched_polyphemus_moth_by_postal_crazylegs.jpg[/img] [img]http://fc09.deviantart.net/fs71/i/2010/222/2/6/Newly_hatched_polyphemus_moth2_by_postal_crazylegs.jpg[/img] [img]http://fc02.deviantart.net/fs71/i/2010/222/0/1/Newly_hatched_polyphemus_moth3_by_postal_crazylegs.jpg[/img]

Aren't you afraid their gonna eat your clothes or something?

they don't have a mouth/digestive system as moths and the caterpillars just like leaves.

I'm wondering why you can pick them up. Do you have to cup your hands over them after you catch them in the net, or do they just recognize you from caterpillar stage enough to know you're not hostile?

[QUOTE=Dr Nick;17590357]You should set them free inside a building when they're fully grown![/QUOTE] F**king brillaint. Set em inside my school so we dont have to go there until there extermintated :hurr:

[QUOTE=Snapzies;23972085]I'm wondering why you can pick them up. Do you have to cup your hands over them after you catch them in the net, or do they just recognize you from caterpillar stage enough to know you're not hostile?[/QUOTE] I doubt they have any form of memory like that. when they're at rest, so long as you're careful and don't freak them out, they'll usually remain calm and you can just scoot them onto your hand, and you can walk around with them. Sometimes they'll start to slowly get hyper again, and start shaking really fast. When they start doing that shaking I just have to get them back outside or in a cage before they fly off.

D'awwww. This is really awesome. How it held on to your fingers after hatching was sooo cool. Can't wait till your next little project.

[QUOTE=postal;23972070]they don't have a mouth/digestive system as moths and the caterpillars just like leaves.[/QUOTE] So do they just live a few days then? Is that why they eat so much as caterpillars? How long does that food give them to live?

That's incredible. What other projects have you done like this? Still, that polyphemus' legs look too spidery for me :ohdear:

I'll probably do some similar experiments like this in a year or two. Do you have any suggestions to what species I should try it with here in Norway? [editline]02:35AM[/editline] Have you ever thought of putting different species together inside a controlled environment? Could either be predators or just species that affect each other in some way.

Those moths are beautiful, I hope you do more stuff like this in the future.