cecropia larvae

[Dan Chaffee]

On 20 Jun 2000 07:29:06 -0700, JADAMS at em.daltonstate.edu (DR. JAMES
ADAMS) wrote:


>	Lilac actually is a pretty good host.  My mom once reared a 
>bunch of Cecropia on a moderate sized Lilac bush in her yard.  
>She had to leave town for a few days and bagged the larvae on the 
>entire bush.  She came back to find the bush completely denuded 
>and the larvae gone (through chewed holes in the bag).  So lilac 
>works well.  And for that matter, a lot of times once you start larvae 
>on one food source, it is often difficult to change them to another.  
>Box Elder is good, but they may not switch readily if they have 
>already been feeding on Lilac.

For what it's worth, I've reared cecropia on lilac, willow, silver
maple, box elder, black walnut, crab apple, apple, wild plum,
wild cherry, and rough-leaved dogwood.  The larvae matured
the most rapidly on the wild cherry, wild plum,
crab apple, and willow. The slowest to mature were reared on 
lilac and rough-leaved dogwood. For cut food, wild cherry and 
crab apple seem to be the easiset to deal with for retaining
freshness in the leaves. Even the notoriously tempermental
H euryalis do well on these two in my experience.

D Chaffee
Kansas City