Lunar Moth Cocoon

We had some dead trees / limbs cut down this past weekend.  I don’t think it looks drastically different, except out the kitchen window.  There is still plenty of shade.  Maybe next year we can afford to cut some pine trees.  So, I was outside looking around when I heard a clicking sound.  I thought it was another chipmunk digging in my rock wall.  (Which, by the way, there is some type of hawk that recently inhabited our woods.  It’s keeping the chipmunks down, thank goodness.)  But, I finally discovered that it was a cocoon.  I knew that it was close to hatching if it was making that noise.  I quickly gathered it and called to Sam to get her bug jar.  The next day, it hatched into a lunar moth.  She had a hard time leaving it alone: “But it needs food and water. I want to hold it.”  Poor thing.  It had just hatched.

I lit the tiki torches and my lemongrass candle.  (I have too much shade for real lemongrass, or citronella, or scented geranium, etc to keep away mosquitos naturally.  Go figure.)  The moth eventually started climbing on my candle, so I quickly blew it out.  It hung out there for a while flapping its wings.  Later that day, I saw some type of bee eating a part of a lunar moth wing.  I hope it wasn’t our freshly hatched moth.

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One thought on “Lunar Moth Cocoon”

  1. Male Luna moth freashly hatched. In central Texas the larvae feed upon pecan trees. The coccoons are placed near the ground on small walls, tree bases, or rocks where they are often preyed upon by ants. It is a fortunate few who avoid birds and wasps as larvae then later ants in the pupal stage to become an adult as seen here.

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