Albany, California Updates (9/3/17): Hyalophora cecropia Cocoons

Back in Albany, the last of our cecropia moth (Hyalophora cecropia) larvae are finishing their cocoons. Stock originated as eggs from New York, June 2016.

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It is mind-boggling to us that the first species to hatch this year is the last to finish. Our cecropia moth (Hyalophora cecropia) cocoons reared from last year first started eclosing near the end of April and we already had a thousand eggs by May. . . and yet five months later the last of them are still finishing up. Our mother sent us these two pictures today, first of two cocoons she recently collected from the apple (Malus sp.) tree sleeves and the second of a runaway larva that she found back that is only now spinning. 

We blame this slow growth on the horrible conditions that the larva had to endure in our California Bay Area weather as well as overcrowding. It was simply not a good idea to start the larva off immediately in sleeves where they get easily lost and killed by the cold, windy, and dry climate. The ones that did survive were simply not healthy either, growing at this sluggish rate and not attaining a very large size at all (a very steep drop from last year's average). At the same time, every last one that we attempted to rear inside were wiped out by disease, which is typical for this species. With that said, one of the things that we greatly look forward to here in Ithaca is rearing the eastern species in their proper climate. 

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Authors
Brian Liang

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