Wednesday, August 24, 2011

Baby Hubbard

Last we saw of Hubbard's Small Silkmoth, Mother Hubbard was laying eggs on our wall. Not the best location we can think of.

These were the eggs on the stucco: teeny green jellybeans! In the previous link, the eggs were actually at day 4 and forming the dark center with pale green 'donut' around the sides. So this is their clear, fresh state on the first day they were laid. 


















Syssphinx/Sphingicampa hubbardi eggs look the day before they hatch:


















Six days after finding them, all 33 eggs hatched. We're now at Day 5 of hatching, and only 17 little ones have survived our learning curve so far. I can't stress this enough: full spectrum light is important. VERY important.

Here's egg-day 6 for your scale-comparing pleasure:


















Freshly hatched caterpillars are darn cute, here's one hatchling with some eggs:


















And little ones next to the empty eggs:


















Skipping forward to day 3, the size differences are growing:


















Here's day 5, with the last survivor of the full-spectrum-lighting disaster and one of the 6(!!!) second-instar caterpillars. Note the difference in facial color and size, wish I'd gotten the little fellow busting out of the chestnut face-mask and going all-out Hulk while writhing and flailing... so small. Sooo cute.


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