A Looong Story With A Lappet Moth Pt 1

[AlP]

Nothing fancy photography wise, more like documentary snapshots. I found this Lappet moth (Phyllodesma americanum) outside on May 19, 2020. Insects are a little scarce up here at the time so you grab anything you can find to photograph. So, the MPE-65 on a Canon 5D MK IV for practice.

In a controlled environment I like to shoot my specimens at all angles, dorsal, ventral, front, sides, rear... eggs? I wasn't expecting this.

Hhmmm, we now know it is a she and she is not moving around much. A chance to try out my auto rail which hasn't been used in a while. Image at 1x with 26 steps at 696µm.

By the next day, May 20, she was finished. 49 eggs in all. MPE-65 at 5x on a Canon 5D MK IV, 29 steps at 84µm.

The first caterpillar emerges May 31 and eats it's egg casing for protein. Hhmmm, what do these guys eat? The trees out front and the boulevard have no leaves yet. There is a park nearby that has some poplar trees that are just starting to leaf. Canon 5D MK IV with MPE-65 at 4x single shot.

All 49 eggs hatched. Pt 2, the caterpillars and cocooning if anybody cares and if not I can stop here... As a side note thinking I was doing "kind" I put the momma moth out on our kitchen window screen outside in the corner. Not even three minutes later a Black-capped chickadee swooped in and ate her.

[rjlittlefield]

Very nice!

I care -- Pt 2 please!

--Rik

[Lou Jost]

Beautiful pictures. And you WERE being kind-- to the chickadee!

[rjlittlefield]

The patterning of the eggs is interesting.

The freshly laid eggs are strongly patterned, apparently with brown. Likewise the slightly older eggs after drying, and the one that is ready to hatch. But the shell of the hatched egg has no brown.

So, I'm thinking that the brown is actually the color of the interior of the egg, and the patterning is opaque white. I note that the egg ready to hatch shows hairs in the brown areas, but not in the white.

Do other people see it the same way?

--Rik

[len]

The patterning of the eggs is interesting.

The freshly laid eggs are strongly patterned, apparently with brown. Likewise the slightly older eggs after drying, and the one that is ready to hatch. But the shell of the hatched egg has no brown.

So, I'm thinking that the brown is actually the color of the interior of the egg, and the patterning is opaque white. I note that the egg ready to hatch shows hairs in the brown areas, but not in the white.

Do other people see it the same way?

--Rik

Very nice observation. It does look like the dark pattern is actually transparent since we can see the red fluid through the "dark" pattern and the bristles in the hatched egg. What bothers me is that if the shell has transparent areas we should see a thin transparent margin when looking on the outer egg of the shell. When I'm looking at the fourth image from profile it looks like the brown area has no transparent layer. Maybe the shell is just too thin to notice.

Anyway Nice photo

[Bob-O-Rama]

You get a gold star for insect husbandry, or whatever the appropriate term is. What a great story. The eggs are really gorgeous.

( My version of this ... did not go well. I had once found a large injured Io moth that I thought was dead ( given the lack of movement and guts hanging out a huge laceration on its abdomen ) which I figured I would do some photos of the wings. It was in a re solo cup cup on my bench. A couple weeks later the moth was gone and there were a bunch of eggs deposited in it, they had hatched and then summarily died of starvation after crawling all over the place. )

[AlP]

You get a gold star for insect husbandry, or whatever the appropriate term is. What a great story. The eggs are really gorgeous.

( My version of this ... did not go well. I had once found a large injured Io moth that I thought was dead ( given the lack of movement and guts hanging out a huge laceration on its abdomen ) which I figured I would do some photos of the wings. It was in a re solo cup cup on my bench. A couple weeks later the moth was gone and there were a bunch of eggs deposited in it, they had hatched and then summarily died of starvation after crawling all over the place. )

I've had a couple of rodeos with moths before this one. Blinded Sphinx moth (prior to this one), caterpillars would only eat Saskatoon and Pin Cherry tree leaves, of which there is none around here. Luckily I had a friend who had a blog in town who put out a call to his readers for Saskatoon leaves. One lady on the far side of town had several of the trees. She allowed me to pop over every couple of days to grab leaves/small branches. I had over 100 caterpillars to feed plus cleaning out the frass. I might post that one after this.

[AlP]

The patterning of the eggs is interesting.

The freshly laid eggs are strongly patterned, apparently with brown. Likewise the slightly older eggs after drying, and the one that is ready to hatch. But the shell of the hatched egg has no brown.

So, I'm thinking that the brown is actually the color of the interior of the egg, and the patterning is opaque white. I note that the egg ready to hatch shows hairs in the brown areas, but not in the white.

Do other people see it the same way?

--Rik

Wow, good catch, Rik. I've never noticed. The brown must be the embryo?

[rjlittlefield]

My guess is that it's the goo that the embryo eats to grow up into a little caterpillar. Sort of like the white+yolk of chicken eggs.

--Rik

[MarkSturtevant]

Very cool! I am interested in seeing more.