The annual moth nookie post
The cecropias have been late emerging from their cocoons this year. Mine usually emerge around the middle of June, and here it is the second week of July. Apparently the cool spring slowed development down somewhat. Yesterday afternoon we finally had the first one hatch.
If you're interested in pictures and information about cecropias, look here http://aprairiehaven.com/modules/AMS/article.php?storyid=379 at the web site of the woman who I got my first caterpillars from several years back. The moths that are emerging this year are the great great grandcaterpillars of the first ones I got.
The first hatch was a female. When you raise cecropias, you usually let the males go right away. I keep one or two females to breed for this year's caterpillars. So this morning at 4:00, the kids and I put our female in a mesh cage outside. Female cecropia moths hardly fly at all; they're already hugely round and heavy and full of eggs when they emerge from the cocoon. So you can leave the female outside in an open cage without worrying about her escaping.
What she does is stick a tiny little spike out of her abdomen that's covered in pheromones. The pheromones start floating away on the breeze, and male moths can detect them from up to miles away. We all sat out on the back steps, a few feet from our moth, and waited. And waited. And waited. Finally, around 4:30, just as it was beginning to get light, a huge male flew into the yard. Sometimes several males come to try to mate with the female, but this time I only saw one. I was happy about having any come, since it's so late in the season. You can hear the males flying from a distance because their huge wings make flapping noises, and they will do ANYTHING to get to the female. You can brush them aside, or try to scare them away, and they'll keep trying, bumping into you in the process if you stand there. I warned the kids the moths might fly into them, so they were prepared. Anyway, the extremely enthused male moth took about a minute to find his way into the female's cage.
When the male moth gets to the female, they start mating immediately. Any other moths that have been trying to find the female immediately give up. Then they stay together for the rest of the day, and tonight we'll let the male go (maybe he'll get lucky again with another female) and the female will lay eggs. The moths only live a week or two as adults; they don't even have mouths to eat.
You wouldn't think mating moths would be exciting, but sitting outside in the still-mostly-dark watching these huge, beautiful, flying creatures come from miles away to find the female is spectacular. I always feel like I'm in the middle of a David Attenborough nature special, and it's only four feet away in my own yard. The kids were entranced.