Alan Copeland,, age 12, of Houston, Texas, for his question:
Where are moths in the winter?
Alan is working on an insect collection and he wonders where to find specimens in the winter. The winged stage of an insect is but pant of his life. This is usually only long enough for it to mate and produce eggs for the next generation. The winged insect is a fragile creature, needing dry summer air. Unless this small creature had some way to protect itself from the cold and wet of winter, it could not survive.
Insects have been surviving successfully for many millions of years. All of them develop from eggs to adulthood in a series of stages, and the early stages are far better able to cope with the weather than is the fragile, adult stage. Each moth goes through an egg stage, a larva or caterpillar stage and a pupa stage. In the egg or the pupa stage it can withstand the cruelest of winters. During the warm summer, the broods of eggs may hatch in a few days and the pupae sleep but a week. But the late batches of eggs and pupae which go to sleep in the fall stay as they are until warm spring weather wakens them.
The eggs are sturdy little things in crisp, water tight shells. The pupae may be hard chrysalises or soft, silken cocoons. Both are to be found near the favorite food which the wormy caterpillar will need to eat. To identify them, we have to study our moths one at a time. The moths and the butterflies share the big Lepidoptera order of insects, the scaly winged ones. In North America alone there are soma 7,000 different members of this clan. The big order is subdivided into some 80 families, 75 of them moths.
In the fall and winter, you may find the crisp chrysalis of the sphynx moth in the ground near last years tomato, potato or tobacco plants.
The big chrysalis often has a hook like handle. Several. of our silk spinning moths spend their winter sleep cuddled in soft cocoons. We may find them clinging to the leaves of the wild ailanthus trees. The lovely spicebush moth winters as a fluffy cocoon attached to a spioebush, a wild cherry, sassafras or sweet gum.
Loveliest of all is the luna moth of the eastern half of our country. No collection is complete without this treasure. His winter cocoon may be found on the ground under the sweet gum, hickory,, walnut or persimmon which the caterpillars will feed upon when they hatch in the spring.
The insect eggs you find in the winter may be hard to recognize and the food the young caterpillars will need may be a mystery. But the pupae will need only warmth and shelter. When they hatch into moths, you can identify and label them for your collection.