Bagworm Moth

Description:

I only took two photos of this Bagworm Moth because at that time, I really was not very interested in this type of creature (mostly because identifying them is just about impossible). However, my interest has grown over recent years and I now enjoy the challenge of uncovering even the smallest piece of information. This particular specimen came to my attention when I was looking at some of my older pictures and notes. It captured my interest for two reasons. #1. It was on the same plant (this time up in the leafy part of the plant) on which I had seen a Bagworm about two months earlier (on that occassion, down on the woody part of the plant, nearer the ground). You can see the earlier one on https://www.projectnoah.org/spottings/17... #2. This Bagworm looked similar to the earlier one. So, my thoughts were something like this: If these two spottings are of the same (albeit unidentified) species and I know that they were on the same plant, I may have found one of the host plants for a Bagworm Moth species. So that could be an nice piece of information to add to the little that I already know. Another idea came to mind as I was preparing this spotting: The two Bagworms look very similar. The only difference I can see is that this latest one is more darkly coloured, compared to the earlier one. Could I be looking at two spottings of the same Bagworm. Is its bag lighter coloured when it is new, but becomes darker with age. After all, the second spotting (this one) was about two months after the first, on the exact same plant. The big question then was; How long do Bagworms live? I found the answer on a web page dealing with Bagworms in U.S.A. (New England to be more exact). It explains that Bagworms live for about four months (depending on climatic conditions), I think that would make my idea possible as the two month gap between spottings is well within the age range. See notes below.

Habitat:

Spotted on Dwarf Santan (Ixora coccinea) in our front yard. Plant identification - http://www.stuartxchange.org/Santan.html......

Notes:

My information about the the life span of bagworms came from - https://ag.umass.edu/landscape/fact-shee....