Eight days ago, a regal moth laid her egg on my hand. We brought it in and put it in a jar. We looked it up to find out how long it would be until it hatched, and then what it would eat. The experts said the egg would hatch in seven to ten days.
Yesterday was day seven. The egg had a dark spot on it. I went out and grabbed a hickory leaf and we placed leaf and egg into a larger container.
This morning I came in about 10:00. The egg was all black. I looked at it again about 12:30 - the egg was empty.
It had hatched! Over on another leaflet, there was the baby hickory horn devil! And what a baby it is - check it out:
Look at all those spines and things!
And here it is with my finger in the background...just to give you an idea of scale. It is maybe 6mm long.
If you take your motion sickness tablets, you can watch the video of it's first steps in the sunshine:
It hasn't taken even a tiny nibble from the leaf we gave it. So we added a fresher leaf and a leaf of another hickory species. We don't know which one it will prefer, but whatever it first snacks on, that will be the one we will have to keep feeding it.
I will keep posting the progress of our little friend, either here or on the Dahlem blog: Dirt Time at Dahlem.
not exactly a cuddly baby !
ReplyDeletebut what a great opportunity to follow its life cycle ... will keep watching for more in the days to come
OMG, your baby is adorable! Hope it thrives.
ReplyDeleteI tried to leave a comment earlier...I'll try again.
ReplyDeleteOMG, it's just adorable! I hope it thrives.
Nature is so awesome!! What a beautiful moth and an "interesting" looking caterpillar. It's hard to believe that the second one comes from the first one .... and the first one comes from the second one. And it's so great that we can see so much of this nature on your blog especially things that we would not otherwise get to see. Very, very cool!!!
ReplyDeletegreat great beatiful
ReplyDeleteoyunlar1