This is where this male got in his indignation when his mate decided that it's time to lay her eggs and his "services" were no longer needed. LOL She's in the part of the box that you can't see in the photo.

They sometimes climb (or maybe even fly) onto the lid and just stay there. I've seen females in such positions too - one of the previous ( Read more... )

Spread your wings and... mate. :P

My camera's batteries went dead after the first few photo attempts, so I went and grabbed my sister's camera, but alas, the moth had already finished spreading her wings when I returned.

The only photo from my camera for this post: two females. The one on the left is still spreading her wings. The exit hole on the ( Read more... )

This is the last of my silkworms  that is still at the larval stage and needs feeding. Everybody else is already inside the cocoons, which is a huge relief because the leaves of some of the mulberry leaves are beginning to turn yellow at an alarming speed. I could stash some green leaves in the fridge, but my mother wouldn't be happy about that at ( Read more... )

I took this photo the other night, right before this silkworm - the last one of its batch, which would just keep eating and grew much larger than the others - finally began looking for a place to spin its cocoon in. Flash photos of white objects are never good with my camera, but I had no time to wait for the next day's sunlight. The silkworm would ( Read more... )

I have a third generation of silkworms for this year. They are growing fast, so I hope I manage to get them throught he whole larval period while there are still green muberry leaves for them to eat ( Read more... )

 He actually flew across the room when I opened the box he was in, which I didn't even try to capture on video because I didn't expect it.

Here I have him flying properly  twice in this little clip (the second time is at the very end), but he got out of range too fast, so I couldn't follow him properly through.

Of course he had to fly in the evening ( Read more... )

... the little thing with the big wings on the right...

... he can really FLY! *happy dance*

Not just flutter through 5 to 10 centimeters at a height of a couple of centimeters, but take off in the air and circle around me a little. He perched on my arm twice. Very untypical of a Bombyx mori domestic silkworm moth. It's good that there was that ( Read more... )

The way things are going, I don't think I have any overwintering eggs from my first generation of moths. Here we go all over again:

When I returned from Sofia, these silkworms had just hatched. And here they are at 4 days old and freshly out of their first skins. See what they've managed to do to the leaves - this is some appetite, right? :)


( Read more... )

Two of my male silkworm moths tried to mate with each other today. At least one of them tried very diligently, and the other didn't seem to mind. But they didn't quite manage it, so they gave it up and then discovered the females that were in the same box with them ( Read more... )

The obligatory silkworm moth porn. LOL

Here is the first mating for this year. The tiniest boy got the girl, partly because he had the good luck to be in the same box with her when she emerged, and partly because he had good enough orientation skills (actually finding the female when you are high on her pheromone is quite an achievement in the ( Read more... )