Look What I Found Outside Of My Door!!!! A Tiger Moth!!!!

Look what I found outside of my door!!!! A Tiger Moth!!!! 🐅🐅🐅🐅🐅

Now that it's ID'd, I suggest caterpillar rearing!! It's fun, informative, and you could possibly contribute to scientific knowledge about it (gosh I love citizen science)

Anyways, here are some of my favourite articles on caterpillar rearing:

A very detailed article

An article that covers the basics with less detail

Some setups for rearing

So yeah!! I recommend being very thorough, because caterpillars do tend to die easily. Sometimes they have a parasite and it isn't your fault, but other times it's fixable. One thing that isn't mentioned in these articles is that if you place food too aggressively in front of the caterpillar, some have a self defense mechanism where they basically regurgitate their innards. I did this once and my caterpillar died :( RIP Gerald, you will be missed 😔

Also humidity and heat within the container is very important. Here's an article on ways to provide your caterpillar with adequate water :)

i found a moth and it laid eggs what do i do heeelp

found it in north california, usa

I saved this post a while back to eventually identify the moth, but since it's already been I'D, I thought I'd show yall how pretty the Virginia Ctenucha is :)

Image credit: Babette Kis

I mean, look at this creature!!

Hi, sorry if this is a weird question, but I’ve been wondering about something for years, and I figure here’s as good a place to ask as any.

So, this was years and years ago, like mid-2010s probably. I was living in southern Ontario at the time, like an hour away from Toronto? And I saw this butterfly during recess at my school, while I was at the park.

Its wings were this gorgeous really dark brown, like roughly the same colour as Minecraft bats if you’ve played that game? And I remember its body was really brightly coloured, like bright red and cyan, possibly with a black head. I don’t remember any markings on the wings, but I was like 12 and it was dark brown so I might have just missed them. I don’t really remember the shape either, so it was probably a relatively generic butterfly wing shape? It was also probably around 3 to 6 cm, but don’t quote me on that, I’m just guessing since I recall it being pretty average size for a butterfly and that seems to be the usual range for Ontario butterflies.

Obviously it could’ve easily been a moth, but I’ve never found any butterflies or moths that fit the description I remember. I’m not even sure butterflies/moths with brightly-coloured bodies like that EXIST, honestly. Also not sure it was native to my area: I’ve never seen anything that looked like that before or since.

(If it helps, it was a suburban area, but one with a lot of wooded areas nearby? There was also this tiny reservoir lake not too far from the area. It was sometime between 10 AM and 1 PM when I saw it, probably around noon.)

Anyways, anybody have any idea what I might’ve seen? Because it’s kind of been haunting me for years.

CW// BUG

MOTH FRIEND MOTH FRIEND MOTH FRIEND!

I love the way this little baby tucked his antennas in! So cute<33

You'll need to relax them first, so they aren't brittle. Then pin them on a spreading board like you'd pin it if the body were there, just estimate the size of the body. Be careful where you handle the wings (it should be from the biggest vein only) and be careful not to pin through them. To mount them, I'd suggest using insect glue not pins to not damage the wings.

Some of my favourite articles on insect pinning:

One (this one's a pdf btw)

Two

Three

Four

Five

Anyone have any knowledge or resources on how to mount moth wings? Literally just the wings, though.

Because every article about insect mounting I've found so far only talks about mounting the entire insect, but I've only got the wings that were scavenged from the ground.

So I was bored....

the moon and stars faded but the moth stayed!