Because we will be moving to Ithaca, New York tonight, we had no choice but to collect all the cecropia moth (Hyalophora cecropia) cocoons despite that not all larvae have spun. We never thought a cecropia brood started all the way back in April would still not be finished now in mid August. We normally would have collected all the cocoons once all larvae had finished spinning, but since we will be moving tonight, we had to collect all the finished ones and resleeve up the remaining few larvae with as many leaves as possible. The cocoons this year are far smaller than the ones last year, despite having received nearly identical treatment (indoors on apple first three instars, and sleeved outside in the last two). The only difference was that some of the larvae this year were sleeved since birth. The larvae this year also grew much, much slower than last year's which all finished spinning at the beginning of August and began in June. We can't really understand why this year's rearing was so poor. We started off with hundreds this year and nearly all died off overtime, mostly the ones that were sleeved since birth. Last year we started with three dozen and got about the same amount through and they were respectable in size, with females at 8 g and males at 6 g. This year, the cocoons are a measly 3-6 g. We didn't imagine cecropias could even get down to 3 g without opting for a supernumerary sixth. Maybe inbreeding reduced their size? ![]() Authors Alan Liang
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Rearing notes for our cecropia moth (Hyalophora cecropia) larvae. These originated as eggs from New York, June 2016. Rearing Notes 7/31/17-8/??/17: 8/8:
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![]() Authors Alan Liang Rearing notes for our cecropia moth (Hyalophora cecropia) larvae. These originated as eggs from New York, June 2016. Rearing Notes 7/20/17-7/26/17: 7/26:
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![]() Authors Alan Liang Rearing notes for our cecropia moth (Hyalophora cecropia) fifth instar larvae. These originated as eggs from New York, June 2016. Rearing Notes 6/26/17-7/??/17: 7/6:
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![]() Authors Alan Liang Rearing notes for our third instar cecropia moth (Hyalophora cecropia) larvae. These originated as eggs from New York, June 2016. Rearing Notes 5/30/17-6/11/17: 6/11:
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![]() Authors Alan Liang Rearing notes for our second instar cecropia moth (Hyalophora cecropia) larva. These originated as eggs from New York, June 2016. Rearing Notes 5/20/17-5/29/17: 5/29:
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![]() Authors Alan Liang Rearing notes for our first instar cecropia moth (Hyalophora cecropia) larva. These originated as eggs from New York, June 2016. Rearing Notes 5/10/17-5/19/17: 5/19:
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![]() Authors Alan Liang Our cecropia moth (Hyalophora cecropia) eggs have finally begun to hatch. . These originated as eggs from New York, June 2016. It's been a long 19 days since our first cecropia eggs were laid (4/21), but today some finally hatched - 50 to be exact. That's about the same amount of eggs that were deposited on the first day which makes sense. The little neonate larvae began crawling out of their shells starting early in the morning, and by noon most that hatched today had done so. The newborn larvae are a familiar site but nonetheless interesting, hatching grey with flaccid yellow tubercles at first and later becoming completely black with small but erect, haired tubercles. They measure about 5 mm in length, though there is some variation in size at birth. They already resemble the all too familiar mature larvae, just black with different anatomical proportions, notably the tubercle size. Anyway, on to the rearing. Since this year we have so many larvae and many more to hatch, we will definitely be sleeving a good majority of them on our two apple trees (Malus sp.) and plum tree (Prunus cerasifera). For the 50 we have so far, we decided to put them on one of the apple trees, all to one sleeve for now. The sleeves are 5-gal paint strainers that can be bought in bulk at a reasonable price online; the material is quite fine and soft and provides good ventilation. So far the larvae have aggregated into small loose groups of mostly 2-4 and have fed a little. It's going to be a cool week so we don't expect them to grow at a very fast rate for now, but hopefully they will at least settle down and start feeding by tomorrow. ![]() Authors Alan Liang To confirm that our Hyalophora cecropia eggs (deposited starting 4/21) are alive and developing, we decided to dissect a few eggs, and made some very intriguing discoveries. It's been over two weeks since our first cecropia eggs were laid, and we were starting to become a little impatient and worried that something was wrong as these usually take about two weeks to hatch at room temperature. We decided to open a few eggs just to see if anything was developing, and we were quite amazed by what we found. Two of the eggs contained nearly fully developed larvae, except that they were bright yellow rather than black. This didn't really come as a surprise as melanization is usually always the last step in egg and other types of insect development, such as pupa and molting. It was the last egg we opened that really revealed something very intriguing. The larva was only partially developed, being bright yellow like the other two with a mostly formed head capsule and body. However, the appendages (pro and thoracic legs) and tubercles were not yet developed, making the larva look like a naked worm. And here comes the big surprise: the larva had a horn - yes, HORN - at the rear end of the abdomen, probably on segment 8 were the large, middorsal tubercles would normally be. The presence of a horn and absence of other tubercles on the body makes the larva highly resemble a larva in the Sphingidae larva! This is an incredibly interesting discovery in the cecropia embryo, as it has many ancestral implications in relation to other members in the Bombycoidea superfamily, in which many larva bear some sort of structure on the rear abdomen. In the Saturniinae subfamily, it is usually a large middorsal tubercle accompanied by other smaller tubercles along the body, but in most other groups such as the Ceratocampinae subfamily and Sphingidae and Bombycidae families, it is usually a horn that may or may not be accompanied by other tubercles on the body (never in Sphingidae). The cecropia embryo we observed thus resembles more of a horned larva of another Bombycid group at this stage of development, which is really quite fascinating. It is possible to see evidence of evolution and common ancestry here because ancestral traits among species are often preserved in the embryonic stages of development. Thus, the horned and tubercle lacking cecropia embyro currently resembles the ancestral larva of it and other similar groups but as it continues development, the horn will eventually be reduced and modified into the middorsal tubercle and the other tubercles on the body will develop, forming a cecropia larva. ![]() Authors Alan Liang |
Timeline 2012–2017
Albany, California This timeline is a series of daily posts recording our observations on and experiences with various insects in Albany California and surrounding areas, from 2012-2017. Since we did not publish this site until 2016, posts before that were constructed retroactively. Starting in August 2017, we moved to Ithaca, New York; posts from there on can be viewed at Timeline 2017-present: Ithaca, New York. Archives (1,011)
August 2017 (49) July 2017 (121) June 2017 (79) May 2017 (77) April 2017 (91) March 2017 (35) February 2017 (12) January 2017 (10) December 2016 (12) November 2016 (26) October 2016 (49) September 2016 (84) August 2016 (94) July 2016 (99) June 2016 (53) May 2016 (21) April 2016 (4) January 2016 (1) August 2015 (3) July 2015 (3) June 2015 (2) June 2014 (3) May 2014 (1) April 2014 (3) March 2014 (3) December 2013 (2) November 2013 (2) October 2013 (5) September 2013 (11) August 2013 (15) July 2013 (9) June 2013 (5) May 2013 (4) April 2013 (3) March 2013 (2) February 2013 (3) January 2013 (2) December 2012 (2) November 2012 (1) October 2012 (2) September 2012 (2) August 2012 (5) July 2012 (1) June 2012 (1) Authors
![]() ![]() Full Species List (Alphabetical by scientific name) Note: - Not every species we encounter is necessarily presented on this site, rather a selection of those that were of particular interest to us and that we felt were worth documenting. - We can't guarantee that all species have been identified accurately, particularly taxa we are not as familiar with. Lepidoptera Actias luna Adelpha californica Agraulis vanillae Allancastria cerisyi Antheraea mylitta Antheraea polyphemus Anthocharis sara Argema mimosae Attacus atlas Battus philenor hirsuta Bombyx mori Caligo atreus Callosamia promethea Coenonympha tullia california Citheronia regalis Cricula trifenestrata Danaus plexippus Eacles imperialis Erynnis tristis Estigmene acrea Eumorpha achemon Eupackardia calleta Furcula cinereoides Heliconius erato Heliconius hecale Heliconius sapho Heliconius sara Hyalophora cecropia Hyalophora columbia Hyalophora euryalus Hylephila phyleus Hyles lineata Junonia coenia Langia zenzeroides formosana Lophocampa maculata Manduca sexta Morpho peleides Nymphalis antiopa Orgyia vetusta Orthosia hibisci quenquefasciata Pachysphinx modesta Papilio cresphontes Papilio eurymedon Papilio glaucus Papilio machaon oregonius Papilio multicaudata Papilio polyxenes asterius Papilio rumiko Papilio rutulus Papilio zelicaon Phyciodes mylitta Phyciodes pulchella Pieris rapae Plejebus acmon Poanes melane Polites sabuleti Polygonia satyrus Pyrgus communis Rothschildia jacobaeae Samia cynthia advena Samia ricini Smerinthus cerisyi Smerinthus ophthalmica Strymon melinus Trichoplusia ni Uresephita reversalis Vanessa annabella Vanessa atalanta Vanessa cardui Unidentified Lepidoptera Hybrids Papilio glaucus × Papilio rutulus Papilio polyxenes asterius × Papilio zelicaon Orthoptera Melanoplus devastator Phaneroptera nana Pristoceuthophilus pacificus Scudderia mexicana Trimerotropis pallidipennis Phasmatodea Carausius morosus Phyllium giganteum Mantodea Mantis religiosa Phyllocrania paradoxa Hymenoptera Apis mellifera Bombus vosnesenskii Brachymeria ovata Linepithema humile Pediobius sp. Polistes dominula Xylocopa varipuncta Unidentified Diptera Lucilia sericata Unidentified Hemiptera Brochymena sp. Leptoglossus sp. Nezara viridula Odonata Argia vivida Libellula croceipennis Coleoptera Coccinella septempunctata Cycloneda polita Diabrotica undecimpunctata Hippodamia convergens Araneae (Class: Arachnida) Araneus diadematus Phidippus johnsoni |