Return to Albany, California (Winter Break 2017-2018): Hyalophora cecropia

We have returned to Albany, California from Ithaca, New York as per Cornell University's winter closing, giving us a chance to check on our overwintering pupae.

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A lot of strange things have happened with our cecropia moth (Hyalophora cecropia) larvae since we left to Ithaca, New York in August. It is already strange enough that they took such a long time to complete their development, which can probably be attributed to bad rearing conditions outside as well as inbreeding, but another thing that we have never figured out is how so many of them disappeared from their sleeves over time. Of course, a number of them fell to disease or were attacked by European paper wasps (Polistes dominula) that were able to bite through the netting, but where the rest of them went has always been a mystery considering that we started off with several hundred and ended now with less than twenty.

We can only assume that a significant number of them must have found a way to escape the sleeves, despite them seemingly being clipped completely shut. Our mother did find a cocoon on our apple tree outside a sleeve while we were in Ithaca and another one when we first came back home to Albany, California. We ourselves spotted another one a few days ago on the tree that is now completely bare. 

Although the cocoons are drastically smaller than the ones that we reared last year and are far smaller than what they should ideally be, they seem healthy for the most part with the exception of two that we ended up throwing out because of low weight. 

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Authors
Brian Liang

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