Given proper care over the course of a year, the insects will go through each stage of their preposterous life-cycle, right before one’s eyes. Pending permission of the other members of the household, one can raise many species of these silk moths in one’s very own home. Eggs are laid and hatched in late spring the caterpillars eat nonstop all summer and by early fall they have cocooned themselves inside a durable silk shell, in which they bide the entire winter, to emerge as moths in spring. It takes neither food nor water: its one aim is to find a mate in the short time remaining to it. All this elaborate get-up, the animal’s “adult” stage, lasts less than a week. Its wide antennae spread out like the fronds of a tiny yellow fern-this is a male. Its green wings taper into two curling streamers that dangle down behind, excessive as a pianist’s tailcoat. The Luna is pressed to the glass like a lizard, soaking up the light. Many species are uncommon or declining over large parts of their range, and the appearance-or apparition, really-of one at your window, no matter the hour, should rouse you from slumber. Not to be confused with the domesticated silkmoth ( Bombyx mori), these are some of North America’s largest moths, one of which (the Cecropia) has a wingspan of up to five inches. At my window is an adult Luna Moth, one of the most striking members of the family Saturniidae and of the sub-group commonly known as the Giant Silk Moths.
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