Been working a lot of hours lately, so I haven't had a whole lot of spare time. While doing an outside round at work the other day, I came across a Great Black-backed Gull resting on a post.
The same day I found three large bucks hanging out in the late afternoon.
 |
| 9-point |
 |
| same buck |
 |
| Two 8-points and the nine |
Back at home, the eggs of the Imperial Moth that I found a few weeks ago started hatching on July 25. The larvae are still in their first of five instars(stages). Larvae from the same brood can come in a variety of colors including green, gray, green, brick red, orange and purplish. It looks like I'm going to get a couple of those colors.
The female Imperial Moth ended up laying nearly 100 eggs, I knew I wouldn't be able to raise that many larvae that grow to 4-6", so I contacted retired biology professor Don Sherwood who has experience with large quantities of moth larvae and gave him all but 10 of the eggs. Of the 10 that I kept only 6 hatched. In exchange for the eggs Don gave me a few Luna Moth and Polyphemus Moth cocoons. In the past couple of days they started to eclose. The Luna and the Polyphemus Moths are in the Saturniidae family, same as the Imperial.
 |
| Luna Moth |
 |
| Polyphemus Moth |
No comments:
Post a Comment