Antheraea polyphemus
(Cramer, 1776)
On October 17, 2004, Rita wrote,
"Our son, Christopher, has been studying caterpillars in school, in the first grade. We were fascinated to find this large green guy eating one of our small five foot oak trees today. We could not find this one in the books his wonderful teacher Ms Jackson, who knows so much about butterflies, was able to lend us.
We live in the Houston, TX area. The caterpillar is about 2.5 inches long and very fat due to the leaves he just ate!!
Any ideas about how to keep him alive?
Will he be a butterfly or a moth?
Thank you so much,
Paul, Rita and Christopher Cinquemani"
I wrote back,
"Rita,
The caterpillar is Antheraea polyphemus. Very nice picture in moth
poem at
Main site with picture of moth
Special page for polyphemus
Put the caterpillar in a large plastic tub or glass jar with a lid on
tight. Offer about six oak leaves still attached to twig.
Clean jar at least every other day and offer fresh food. It is nearly
full grown and will spin a cocoon soon. I do not know if it will
emerge then in about two to three weeks or whether it will stay in
cocoon stage for the winter and emerge in March.
There is info about overwintering cocoons available from main site,
but where you are the cocoon could just be kept in an empty aquarium
in house or classroom for winter months.
Another good article is at
http://www3.islandtelecom.com/~oehlkew/bchiasmus.htm
http://www3.islandtelecom.com/~oehlkew
http://www3.islandtelecom.com/~oehlkew/zpolmoth.htm
http://www.silkmoths.bizland.com/emerge.htm"
"We just wanted you both to know Christopher's caterpillar hatched on the day before Thanksgiving. We were really fascinated by the whole process. It was great fun for the whole family to find the caterpillar watch her spin his cocoon and then have her hatch and fly away. Thanks to both of you for your encouragement. Have a wonderful NEW YEAR !!
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