For the Meeting of the Morrow…
Half the night I waste in sighs,/Half in dreams I sorrow after/The delight of early skies;/In a wakeful dose I sorrow/For the hand, the lips, the eyes,/For the meeting of the morrow…Tennyson: Maud - part III (IV: 163-168)
One September years ago I was cutting the tall weeds near my beehives when something caught my attention. It was a large, brown-colored object with one long side attached to the trunk of a nearby apple tree. It was perhaps four or five inches long, a couple inches thick at the widest, and made of leaves. I recognized it at once as some type of cocoon, most likely a moth cocoon, but from what species?
I gently cut the cocoon off the tree and attached it to the inside of a large wire cage. Then I attached the cage to the apple tree so that the cocoon was more-or-less in the same location as when I had found it. This way whatever was in the cocoon could go through its lifecycle as natural as possible.
In mid spring the following year, I moved the cocoon and cage into my house to keep a closer eye on it. Then on the morning of May 15th, I found a beautiful Cecropia Moth resting on the outside of the cage. After emerging from its cocoon, it had apparently crawled through the one-inch wire mesh on the cage before pumping up its wings and expanding them to their full size.
A Cecropia Moth, also called a Robin Moth, is North America’s largest moth with a wingspan of half a foot. The short-lived adult is nocturnal, preferring to go about its business in darkness.
After taking a few photos, I left it on a tree branch to await the coming night when it would mingle with the opposite sex of its own kind. Love would soon be in the air.
The intricate patterns and earthy hues on this wing identify it as that of a Cecropia Moth (Hyalophora Cecropia).
Many types of moths and butterflies have equally intricate patterns on their wings too. Others have brightly colored wings, and many have drab-colored ones. While colors and wing patterns vary widely and are species-specific, moths and butterflies, with very few exceptions, have this in common: their wings are covered in scales. Tiny, hard scales, each about the size of a piece of dust, cover both the top and bottom surfaces of the wings. In fact, the Latin name for this Order of insects is Lepidoptera, which means “scaled wing.”
Each wing is made of two thin membranes connected by a rigid network of veins, similar to the structure of corrugated cardboard on large boxes. Covering each membrane is a single layer of cells. Some of these cells secrete a compound that hardens into microscopic scales. The colors and patterns on the wings are completely developed before the moth or butterfly emerges from its cocoon.