1st Day: Project Silkmoth

So i finally got giant silk moth eggs today! So excited! I have invested soo much time into this project it might almost be sad. Whatever it's going to be amazing! These first eggs are Luna Moth eggs and the guy sent me 33 of em!

This lone guy below must've come detached in transit :(. I hope it ends up alright. Moths usually lay their eggs on the underside of leaves with some kind of glue like substance but when breeders have moth eggs, they put them in paper bags to lay eggs because moths won't lay unless alone an undisturbed plus distribution is easier this way. that's the brown stuff you're seeing.

This next image is a dozen or so moth eggs from a giant silkmoth called Promethea. The finger is for scale.

I can't wait to see them hatch! I expect to get a lot of hopefully really good photos and art projects out of this. So I really really hope I can raise them to adults successfully. I keep getting really paranoid about ending up killing them all... so many potential moths... but I've done like 3 months worth of research to make this project as smooth as possible. I'll def post often about it just to keep track of when certain things happen. If all goes well, i'm totally doing this again next summer.

For anyone curious about what could possibly be so hard about raising some caterpillars... well moth caterpillars are picky eaters so I had to research what plants they eat and then prior to today, i had to collect food plants and when they hatch, i will have to experiment to see what each of the worms take and then continue to collect the plants of their choice for them wherever these trees may be. Plus when they're super little, humidity and temperature is a big facture, but as they get bigger, feeding them more often becomes more of a chore and over crowding becomes a problem. These aren't called giant silk moths for nothing. Their caterpillars can get sausage sized! But then once they puppate, they don't have mouths. they live for a few days, look pretty, mate, lay eggs and then die. But getting to see the whole thing happen will be sooo awesome!

Speaking of things potentially dying, i also have acquired a new roommate. A friend of mine left me with their goldfish, muffin, for the summer. "He's fat and sassy." I've already started talking to him a bit. Weird? I THINK NOT!

P.S. been looking at a lot of blue prints of conoco oil stuff. just finished matting a bunch for my friend. posting pictures of that soon.