Saturniidae (Saturniinae)

When I was up at Sandwich Bay recently they had a load of Emperor Moth Caterpillars from eggs laid in the trap. So Liz and I each brought two home. This one is much smaller but at the same instar so we'll see if he ever catches up with the other one. I'm hoping this means this is a male. They are probably at final instar and will pupate sometime soon, then need to be refrigerated for the winter. Brought back out around end of Feburary or begining of March and will hopefully emerge in April.

When I was up at Sandwich Bay recently they had a load of Emperor Moth Caterpillars from eggs laid in the trap. So Liz and I each brought two home. This is what I hope is a female as she is big enough to eat the other one in one gulp nearly..lol They are probably at final instar and will pupate sometime soon, then need to be refrigerated for the winter. Brought back out around end of Feburary or begining of March and will hopefully emerge in April.

Very small as you can sorta tell these are all on one Bramble leaf, they will get quite large and far more colorful :)

First instar of the fantastic moth, I was lucky enough to pick up a few caterpillars from a friend at Sandwich bay and mine are much bigger than these, probably 4th instar and a bit prettier if I do say so myself..lol

We moved them out into a better view ever so carefully as not to disturb them any more than necessary, and I sat in aww of the whole thing.

We went back the next day to the area to see if we could get lucky again and we did happen to see two males. The major difference being there was no female scent to cause them to slow down and let me tell you when the sites and books say they are fast flying they are NOT kidding. They fly at speeds much like those of a dragon fly, hug the tree lines and are far more flighty then any butterfly or Dragonfly. Its just a dull brownish-orange blur that if you didn't know better you might think was our small bats.