A baby big brown moth

August

Look what Zachary found in a neighbor’s yard: a Polyphemus caterpillar. Zachary is 8, lives in New Rochelle and is the son of Danielle Perillat, a photo editor here at Lohud/TJN.

This is the second, staff-related Polyphemus incident this summer. Editor Scott Faubel’s wife took a photo of a Polyphemus moth a few weeks ago.

Anyway, Danielle said she convinced Zachary to let the caterpillar go so it could find the right plant to build a cocoon on and complete its transformation to a moth. They don’t appear to be picky about where they make their cocoons, according to this Web site.

“Host plants of Polyphemus caterpillars include many trees and shrubs, such as: oaks, maples, pines, birches, American Hornbeam, hawthorns, American Beech, ash, Witch Hazel, Black Walnut, Yellow Poplar, Black Cherry, Quaking Aspen, Elderberry, alders, Sassafras, blueberries, grapes, willows, hickories, elms, chestnuts, and American Sycamore.”

The strawberries were just Zachary’s attempt to be a good host.

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 14th, 2008 at 4:18 pm by Mike Risinit.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
Print | Email

One Response to “A baby big brown moth”

mrojas August 23rd, 2008 at 9:21 pm
I saw one of these once in Carmel. It looked like something out of Alice in Wonderland. Glad to know I wasn’t hallucinating!!!

It is a condition of your use of the comment features associated with the blogs that you do not: Use the site to post or transmit any unlawful, threatening, abusive, libelous, defamatory, obscene, vulgar, pornographic, profane or indecent information of any kind, including without limitation any transmissions constituting or encouraging conduct that would constitute a criminal offense, give rise to civil liability or otherwise violate any local, state, national or international law. You alone are responsible for the material you post or send. Refer to the Terms of Service.