cecropia

Chuck Vaughn aa6g at aa6g.org
Fri May 30 09:10:22 EDT 1997


Ted,

>also I have read that they
>have a tendency to die when they go into their last instar when raised in
>captivity. anyone have any comments concerning this and how it could be
>prevented.

I can only relate my experience from raising them last year. I had about
30 make it into 5th instar. One died for no obvious reason, it didn't turn
colors get mushy or anything. Another died when I removed it from the box
I had them all in when I noticed that it had begun to make a cocoon. I put
it out on a table in bright light so I could watch it. It stopped making its
cocoon and died in two days. After that I left the rest in the box as I noticed
they liked to make their cocoon in dark corners of the box. All the rest
were successful.

OTOH, polyphemus catepillars were perfectly happy to be rolled up in a single
leaf and placed out in the open when cocoon making time arrived.

Chuck Vaughn <aa6g at aa6g.org>




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