Finally have a silkmoth!

AReptile

New Member
I believe this was my 3rd or 4th attempt at starting a silkworm colony, and i purchased large silkies where about 1/3 of them coccooned. The first moth hatched i guessed this morning or last night but it seems kinda small, its slightly bigger than a waxmoth and no larger than a medium sized cricket. I thought they get bigger? Also i thought they didnt eat or go to the bathroom, but when i had the moth on my hand it shout out this disgusting brown looking liquid which i have to assume is piss lol. Anyone know of a good way to sex them as well? No clue if it's a boy or a girl.
 
If it has a tiny body then it's a male. If it has a fat body, female. Wings are more stunted on males too.
 
I suppose i'll have to wait till another hatches because i dont have a reference yet. Idk body looks i guess big for the size of the moth. I coulda swore i saw pictures of really big silkmoths, the biggest silkworm i had was about 2.5x the size of this moth =(
 
the moths are much smaller than the full grown silkworms. This is normal. the females are very fat. I mean balloted looking fat. Try to warm the cocoons up to about 77degrees to help them all hatch at the same time. Once they emerge from their cocoons they purge themselves of the waste products created during their metamorphosis.
 
With alot of insects the male is usually alot smaller than the female when a female hatches out you will definetly see the size difference. As for the brown liquid no idea what that could be, might be a defense mechanism against predators?
 
I think it was the waste product like movie said in the post above you though. I was under the impression that they just mate, lay eggs, and then die so i didnt realize they would be doing that lmao. I threw it back in the tank right after it did that on my hand =(
 
Ok so the first one was a male, i know that after seeing the next two having 2x larger abdomen than the first guy. 2 of them have been mating most of the day, how long does it take for them to mate normally? i'd like to feed them off to my lizards before they die.
 
Bump an old thread for curiosity.

I just tried my hand at some silky cocoons, 5 mins ago I stared down in there to see a white moth looking back at me! Sweet but do I have to feed this guy anything?

I read they just reproduce the die, if this is the case then I don't need to worry about any sort of "nectar" but lets see how far I can take this life cycle. :)
 
Silkmoths don't eat - they just mate, lay eggs and die. When I had my first moth I was unprepared for just how damn cute they are and couldn't face feeding it to anyone, so I named him Moffy and kept him in a tub - he lived for 9 days! Those must be the cutest moths ever! Chams do love to eat them too though and I have fed off other moths that I have had since.
 
Back
Top Bottom