North American Wild Silk Moths
H. euryalus are picky eaters! Alder, Sweet Gum, Ceanothus, privit, pluot, peppertree. Finally, finally! The little buggers started eating the peppertree. Here they are. They hatched on dd b'day!
Here's what the eclosed moth will look like:
Um, so I raise wild silkmoths.
I remember ages ago a rather rich, spoiled acquaintance was visiting with a friend of ours. I was baking. He made some snarky comment about it: in essence about domestic, mundane pursuits such as baking muffins. Yeah, if I want to eat them, I gotta bake them! What did he expect, I ask the cook to do it?? (Yes. Really.)
Anyway, if I want to play with 'wild silk' other than bombyx silk, well, I have to raise my own.
And it's just way cool. Better than television.
3 Comments:
OH! That is too cool! We raised butterflies a couple years ago, but they weren't that pretty. And there was no silk to play with afterwards. Are you planning to harvest the silk the traditional way or wait till they are finished with it? Will you be raising generations of moths?
Hi Amy! I wait until they're finished, and then play with the silk from the empty cocoon. I hope to have generations! I love seeing these guys eat and get huge. :-) Here's a wonderful site to learn more about them. http://www3.islandtelecom.com/~oehlkew/
Deedo, do you have any euryalus pupae you could spare? I am willing to exchange cocoons of other spp with you. Let me know.
Thank you,
Henry
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