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Empyreuma affinis
A fascinating creature that makes astonishing changes as it developes. It starts as a bright green egg that hatches into a fuzzy orange and white-spotted larva. It proceeds to eat and grow and molt until it is about 2 1/4" long. At this point it sheds its skin one last time and shrinks to about an inch after it wraps itself into a dark brown almost black pupa with a silky and hairy enclosing cocoon. It ecloses finally as a black adult with bright red wings and iridescent blue-green body hairs and its namesake white spots running down its abdomen.
Host plant - Oleander. Also eats yellow allamanda vine as a caterpillar
A few wild oleander moths. The first four pictures are of one I raised on my own. I have a much greater understanding of their life cycles from the experience
4 Comments
sure igorneau
Amazing! Could you add this and your other beautiful moths to my mission, Moths of the Americas? Thanks!
http://www.projectnoah.org/missions/8841...
thanks
Beautiful!