Polyphemus caterpillar

[papilio]

Hello all, and especially warm greetings to Rik! I've not visited the forum in quite a few years, it's been an enjoyable evening browsing topics and getting a taste again of what people are up to.

Growing up on our family farm in southwest Minnesota, named "Oakridge" for its abundance of these magnificent giant trees, we were thus gifted with an abundance of Polyphemus moths (Antheraea tela polyphemus). I would breed and raise them many summers, and I particularly loved gazing at the caterpillars as they molted.

The larger images (2:1 magnification using a Raynox 250) are shallow focus stacks of thee hand-held images, displaying a freshly-molted second instar.
The first images here (1:1) give an appropriate appreciation of their size, about 6mm. Adorable, right?!
.

[WojTek]

Yes, yes, very nice

[papilio]

Thank you so much, @WojTek!

[Beatsy]

Beautiful images and a striking subject with interesting context. I love these "zoom in" sets. Last image is my fave (says the resolution-junkie ).

Cheers
Beats

[papilio]

Oh, thank you, Beats! Yeah, mine too ... I love the lighting play through the translucent spines, especially in this tail portion. So ethereal.
But the dark spines are a lot of fun too!
.

[rjlittlefield]

Michael, welcome back!

There are no wild oaks where I have lived in Washington state, so the Polyphemus here eat birch and willow. I used to have great fun raising an occasional batch.

But it has been decades since I have seen even one adult in the wild. All the leps are down dramatically. There are probably lots of factors; the most obvious one is the high efficiency of European paper wasp Polistes dominula at harvesting caterpillars. Chance of survival for any cm-sized caterpillar in my yard must be near zero.

--Rik

[papilio]

Hey Rik! Thank you, so nice to be back again!

I know, it's tragic what's happened to all leps since our boyhoods. I raised these the summer before last, here in the Twin Cities ... I also raised Cecropia, Luna, C. regalis and Antherina suraka. It was discouraging to experience that, while I had in my earlier years had nearly 100% typically make it from egg to adult, with all of my species last year I would end up with perhaps 10% survival rates. No idea if it was chemicals, city pollution or what?

[CrispyBee]

No idea if it was chemicals, city pollution or what?

Well you've got decades of weed killers and pesticides being sprayed around like crazy, you've got parkings lots that used to be plains and fields and you've got lawns that are being cut daily by robotic lawn mowers, just so that nothing is able to grow on those grey-green deserts except for cultivated grass.

I mean when you look around in many countries there's barely a patch of natural wild areas left where caterpillars/butterflies and bugs in general are able to just exist and flourish... that's now new, but we're really just seeing the results of the actions of past generations. And with global warming it's not going to get any better.

[Olympusman]

Absolute beauty.

Mike

[MarkSturtevant]

Beautifully ethereal pictures. Very well done. It is interesting how caterpillars will change their appearance as they grow. I am less familiar with the younger instars of Polyphemus, but these look similar to other Saturniid cats like Cecropia. Larger cats later come to look a lot like Luna moth cats even thought the adult moths are completely different.

[Lou Jost]

No idea if it was chemicals, city pollution or what?

Well you've got decades of weed killers and pesticides being sprayed around like crazy, you've got parkings lots that used to be plains and fields and you've got lawns that are being cut daily by robotic lawn mowers, just so that nothing is able to grow on those grey-green deserts except for cultivated grass.

I mean when you look around in many countries there's barely a patch of natural wild areas left where caterpillars/butterflies and bugs in general are able to just exist and flourish... that's now new, but we're really just seeing the results of the actions of past generations. And with global warming it's not going to get any better.

For big moths like these, I think light pollution is more important than anything else except habitat destruction. Lights basically sample and kill all the big moths in their vicinity, especially on foggy nights. Day after day, year after year. And it just gets worse over time. My moths in Andean Ecuador are also way down, in spite of vast untouched forests which get no insecticides. You can see lights in the distance from almost anywhere on these mountains.

[brentbristol]

Beautiful images! Luminous quality to the subject!

-Brent

[Sym P. le]

LOL A screen shot makes photo of the month? Who's running this show?

[Chris S.]

LOL A screen shot makes photo of the month? Who's running this show?

I may be taking your humorous comment way too seriously, but here goes.

A list of who's running this show is indicated on the index page: "Moderators: Chris S., Pau, Beatsy, rjlittlefield, ChrisR".

As one of the names on that list, I'd point out that we don't have a "Photo of the month" as you call it, but rather, a pair of "Administrators Appreciation Awards." We see these as a tip of the hat for things the admin team appreciates. This does often feature a high-quality photo or group of photos, but also covers things taught in one or more threads (we love to be educated!) and general helpfulness around the forum--sometimes over years of contributions. Since we see this as a form of "thank you" and "attaboy! or "attagirl!" we try not to recognize the same forum members too frequently.

Looking at the macro front page this month, which features papilio's polyphemus, I think it looks great--it certainly doesn't scream "screen grab" to my eye. In my guess, papilio posted screen captures in his thread to show that the colors were truly vibrant, and not jacked up during processing. This is not something I'd want to see very often, but done like this on occasion, conveys information that helps us understand the image.

Humor aside, do you have any serious criticism of this month's selections?

--Chris S.

[Sym P. le]

Thanks for the response. It was just a stream of consciousness reply when the awkward juxtaposition dawned on me. You guys do an awesome job.

The image deserves its award. It has an ethereal quality to it. Though seemingly a little cold, the bluish hue lends itself to the subject. I'm wondering how the lighting is set up.