Thank you for reading my blog. I hope you are having a very good day.
There is a moth that lives in Tallulah Falls, and probably lots of other places in the United States, called the Cecropia Moth. It is one of the most beautiful of all insects. But it didn't start out as a moth. It started out as an egg laid by the female moth on a leaf that would provide its food after it hatches.
The color of the egg can be white, green, blue or even brown. Inside the egg is a liquid that the embryo ( which is what the moth is called before it hatches) feeds on while it starts to grow. When it becomes too big for its egg, it breaks out after something of a struggle, and it is a beautiful green caterpillar . The struggle makes its muscles strong enough for it to immediately crawl along the leaf that it's egg was attached to ,and it begins eating. If mama chose the wrong leaf on which to lay her eggs, the baby caterpillar would really be in trouble, as it wouldn't have anything to eat.
The little caterpillar eats all the time, and grows so fast that it becomes too big for its skin, and so it will grow a new skin under the skin that's too tight, and then it will shed the old skin. That's called "molting". It will molt at least 4 times before it is full grown. Then, before Winter comes the caterpillar will stop eating, and will start to spin a little house for itself called a cocoon. This cocoon is made of silk that the caterpillar produces, and it will totally encase the caterpillar, so that you can't see it any more. The cocoon has 2,000 to 3,000 feet of silk in it, and, yes, it's the same silk that the shirt is made of that your mother wears. Get her to show you one!
Anyway, while in the cocoon the caterpillar begins to change completely. It grows different kinds of legs, and it grows wings. When the change is complete, it will pop the top off of the cocoon, and begin the big struggle to get out. Once, when Katie and I were watching a Cecropia moth struggle to get out, she reached up to widen the cocoon so it would be easier for the moth to escape the cocoon. GrandDad stopped her. He said that the struggle made her stronger, and if she didn't struggle to get out, she would be too weak to fly, and she would die.
After the moth escapes the cocoon, it takes an hour on so for its wings to dry and unfold, and then it can take off in flight. The female will then find the right leaf on which to lay eggs, and the process will start again for the next generation of Cecropia moths.
What Katie and I learned from studying the life cycle of the Cecropia Moth was that sometimes going through a struggle is the best thing that can happen to you, as it will make you stronger in the long run.
Keep your chin up.
Robert P. Rabbit