THEY DON'T HUNT FOR MOTHS ANYMORE

A couple of months ago, I wrote about a pond which was a focus of some youth reflections. ("THE POND", April 8). The pond was an ecosystem that seemed to both host an extensive natural community and provide environmental water collection benefits for the surrounding prairie and farmland. I mentioned that stands of trees and shrubs at the pond provided hunting grounds for cecropia moth cocoons. Indeed, the pond was a magnet for all sorts of insects, including wild bees that have disappeared today.

Cecropia are the largest American moth, and are a giant silk moth. They are extremely colorful and have a wingspan of 5 to 6 inches. The moth cannot eat, as it has no mouth or digestive system. The moth, therefore, lives only a week or so, long enough to mate or lay eggs for the next generation. In the Fall, a mature cecropia caterpillar spins a silken cocoon around it attached to a tree or shrub branch and becomes a pupa until it emerges as a moth in the Spring.

For me and my friends, a cecropia cocoon was the grand prize of hunting. But we found few. Most of the cocoons we found produced a similar giant silk moth called polyphemus. Less colorful than cecropia, they live only a week or less, as they also do not eat. The cocoons of both moths look alike to young eyes, so what kind of cocoon one found had to wait until a moth emerged.

Therein lies a story. The best hunting for cocoons was done in late Winter or early Spring, when cocoons could be seen without leaves or snow to interfere. The procedure was to snap off a branch bearing a cocoon and carry it home proudly as a trophy. Because of its value to me, I would find a place for my cocoon somewhere in our living room--without the knowledge of the other occupants. When the moment was right, as they say in the TV commercial, the warmth of the room and sun pouring through the window would stimulate emergence: the pupa would open and a moth would tear through the top of the cocoon. To my mother's horror, the moth would crawl along the carpet and up a drape, where its wet, crumpled wings would stretch and dry to become a BIG moth. Amid requisite screams, the moth then would fly around the room and come to rest on another drape or a lamp shade to await evening. In the evening, I would always release it to frolic for its week of life.

Most of time, our cocoons would give us polyphemus moths. But when a kid found he had a cecropia, he had endless bragging rights. Regardless, we learned a great deal from the life cycle of these moths..from egg to adult moth. Most important, we learned to respect the lives of these creatures of the night that few people ever have have seen. And, perhaps without the ecosystem of the pond, we may never have seen them.

Today, kids appear to collect electric cocoons called smart phones, tablets, computers, games, etc. and look for electronic pictures and words to hatch from them. Back at the pond, we had cecropia, polyphemus and more, and the learning they gave us--without batteries needed.