Killdeer protest

Hey! Look what happens when you get too close to a Killdeer on her nest, before she breaks and runs off with a fake broken wing, trying to lure you away.
I never knew about those beautiful orange under-feathers before.

Moth parts, Hyalophora cecropia

So. This is a MALE (see previous post, "Cecropia moth"), and these are his claspers that he would have used if he ever found a willing female, but he never went to find one. I would find him each morning positioned like this. When I would move the container to get a better look, he would close this up.


The helpful crew at bugguide.net told me the females usually don't fly off, but instead stay put and point their magic pheromone-wand in the air to attract males. Not having ever seen a female Cecropia moth's pheromone organ, I thought that's what was going on here.

We don't know why he never flew off.

Cecropia moth

Hyalophora cecropia

My neighbor's kid got a Cecropia moth caterpillar at camp, and she raised it all summer in a plastic jug; they called me early this morning to tell me it had emerged. Everybody had to leave for the day, so I took it to my place. I spent all day with this dopey beauty, keeping an eye on it while it got itself organized; I wanted to be there when it decided to fly off, so I could let it out of its container when it was ready to leave, so it wouldn't bash up its wings fluttering around inside. Eventually (seven hours later) I started to lose patience and took it outside and took the lid off and encouraged it to crawl onto a stick, whereupon I lifted it out of the container, and took a million photos, and it still didn't do anything except rearrange its grip. So I propped the stick up in the container and left it alone.

Another three hours, now dark out, still there. It could be a female, I read they mostly sit around and put out pheromones, but the extra-large antennae say male, so who knows.

That fur! Those colors! I can't stand it!

 Male Cecropia moth

Update: with help from the friendly people at bugguide we got it all sorted out. It's a male (huge antennae), who wasn't acting like a typical male Cecropia moth by flying off to find a mate. I say it's a free country, and we'll all adjust.