Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hello all,
I have had an interest in silk moths for some time and would like to try and find/raise one. I live in upstate NY (Rochester). I have read many articles on moths with hints for searching at night, looking for frass and eaten leaves, searching edge habitat, etc... I'd like to know from you how you find them. I have a bunch of cherry trees and an ash in my backyard that I have found tiger swallowtail cats on, but never anything else. Any help/suggestions would be great. Oh I'm not so hot on buying one and having it delivered, I'd rather find my own instead.

Thanks again,
Chris

well, that's weird...I wrote out a reply to this yesterday and just noticed I never posted it! LOL! here it is...

Hi Chris,

I actually rear most of mine from eggs either ordered from a local breeder or collected from one of my reared females and a wild male. Personally, I have had little luck locating cocoons! Something you may be able to find now would be the promethea. They fly in May and then again in July so you might find some uneclosed cocoons. First, you need to become familiar with what the cocoons look like and where to look. Promethea have several favorite food plants and in our area (I am in NH) sassafras and spicebush are two of them. I have linked you to a site with some good pix (be sure to look at the last cocoon as well). They usually wrap themselves in a single leaf and just hang all winter.

The luna, polyphemus and cecropia have probably already eclosed and are gone. luna and poly are usually on the ground. They spin in the tree and fall with the leaves or climb down and spin in the leaf little. These you should look for in late winter/early spring once the snow cover is gone. Cecropia are usually firmly attached to trees. Here is a pic: entomology.ent.uga.edu/collection/B3.htm

Finding the cats can prove next to impossible unless you have a good eye and monitor a host plant with signs of chewed leaves and frass. Hope this helps a little

lele
promethea cocoon

Thanks Lele for the info. I also found a site that talks about winter collection and I linked it below. They make it seem that it should be kind of easy to find them in the winter if you look in the right places.

Thanks again,
Chris
Link