Bugfolks

Promethea and polyphemus cocoon

Went walking down by the chippewa river on sunday to look for silk moth cocoons and didnt come back empty handed!  It was neat to see huge flocks of geese moving all around along with hundreds of mallards trying to find a spot on the river with no ice.  I had all my luck right up close to the water where in the spring the cocoons would be submerged for a few weeks as the snow melts.  My first cocoon came on a paper birch sapling followed by another one right next to it that had been subjected to disease or parasites. A few birch trees down the bank i found a cecropia but it looked faded and had holes in it so i just left it.  I kept walking along the banks and stumbled across 2 promethea cocoons hanging on a sapling ash tree( not to common to find them on ash around here usually cherries).

After that i was cold and headed back to my girlfriends house to drive deer for her father.  Saw one buck but he didnt get a shot and during the drive i stumbled across a large almost circular shaped cecropia cocoon.  I have found cecropia cocoons like this before but they have all been dead.  I grabbed it and pulled it off the willow branch and gave it a shake and to my surprise sounded promising.  It also had a decent amount of weight to it.

Left: loose baggy wild cocoon.Right: wild compact cocoon

Ian Miller

We spent a few weeks in Eastern Canada in late September and early October.  Not many insects - it was cool and breezy much of the time.  But I did see a few nice ones.

This is a Beach Wolf Spider (Arctosa littoralis) that I found on a beach along Lake Superior, in the upper peninsula of Michigan.  (Not an insect, but close enough.)  It was quite large - the body was more than an inch long.

I found it by following some odd tracks in the sand.

There were tracks like this all over the beach, but no indication of what made them.  I dug in the sand at the end of several of the tracks, but didn't find anything.  At the end of this one, I found a pile of damp, stringy sand - it looked like it was held together with spider webbing - with the spider in the middle.  This is the damp sand after the spider got out.

I looked hard for more spiders, but couldn't find any.  So I'm still not sure what made the tracks.

This is another spider from northern New Brunswick.  (It was a very dark rainy day - we had just spent the day hiding out from Hurricane Kyle, which had been heading toward Nova Scotia - so the photo isn't very good.)  I think it's another species of Wolf Spider, but I don't know for sure.

Here are a few butterflies from Bic, Quebec.

Mourning Cloak(Nymphalis antiopa)

Clouded Sulphur (Colias philodice)

The only other butterfly I saw was a Cabbage White.

It was late enough into the fall that there weren't many flowers blooming.  When I did see flowers, they were covered with nectaring insects.  This clump of daisies was in Bic, Quebec.

Marcie

Finding Wild Silk Moth Cocoons

Ian Miller

Every fall/ winter im very active with hunting and fishing.  I usually end up getting bored and searching for cocoons while im walking through the woods or along lake/river banks.  I have found wild cocoons or larva from every species of wisconsin saturniidae but the columbia silk moth( likley because i dont look on larch which is there primary source of food)  So far this year i have found 3 wild promethea cocoons, 2 wild cecropia cocoons, 3 wild polyphemus cocoons, one wild io larva that cocooned, and i recieve some overwintering wild luna cocoons from down south.  Typically when im searching for cocoons i start by looking on the shrubs that i rear the larva on ( birch, cherry, willow are the three main plants i always look over). 

Cecropias tend to cocoon near the base of the trees where they will be covered with snow to insulate them over the course of the winter but some individuals will spin up at eye level length wise on braches. Since cecropias have such a tendancy to wander away from there host plant its hard to judge what they are eating by what plant you find them on.  Here they show a preference for cherries but i have found them on ( Red Maple, White Ash, Choke Cherry, Speckled Alder, Box Elder, river Birch, paper birch, Liliac, Dog wood, Elm, and honesuckle)  Cecropias are a highly suseptible species to disease and parasitization.  Last year i found over 30 cocoons that were all containing dead larva my suspision lead me to believe that it was NPHv.

Left: Sleeve reared cecropia Right: Wild Cecropia

Polyphemus cocoons can either A. be securley fastened to a branch or B.  spun up around the leafs near the base of their host plant.  I usually find polyphemus on birch and willow and occasionally in dogwoods and wild black cherry.  I start by examining the braches to see if any were generous enough to spin where they are easy to find then i will sift through the leafs and grass at the bases of the trees themselves.  Polyphemus are the most common wild silk moth in eau claire county i have reported over 100 seperate males in one night at scenting females.

Some collected male polyphemus! All were released after photo.

Promethea moths are a highly parasitized species. Finding their cocoons is very easy i always start by searching wild black cherries that are scattered throughout feilds and open areas.  Moths usually preffer open areas with trees of shrubs that are spread out.  Promethea cocoons hang like ornaments from host trees and are one of the easiest to find.  I have found them on dog wood, hazelnut, and maple but almost always are found on cherries.  ( i have reared the species on maple before but they do not get nearly as large as they do on cherry)

Promethea larva on cherry.

Luna moths are among one of the most difficult cocoons to find along with the io moth.  They both rarley ever fasten their cocoons to a branch and always spin up in leaf matter at the base of host plants.  I dont ever target looking for their cocoons but i have come across them on a few occasions looking for polyphemus moth cocoons.  Lunas show a preference towards paperbirch and black walnut here in eau claire and ios will almost eat anything.  Ios tend to crawl several feet away from their original host plant before they spin up in dead leafs.

Male Luna

For anyone who has larch on their property it may be wirth searching for columbia silk moths.  Their cocoons are very well camoflauged to look exactly like the bark.  I myself have never found a wild columbia larva or cocoon but we dont really have much for larch and tammarack around here. They are reproted futher north than eau claire and are probably much less numerous than any of the other moths.

(Io, Luna, Polyphemus, Promethea, Cecropia)

Note: Its amazing how much darker wild cecropia cocoons are from sleeve reared ones. Also the size of wild cocoons can't compare to cage or sleeve reared speciemens.