Eri caterpillars: Third Skins
The caterpillars are entering the third instar. They are looking significantly different now; you almost wouldn’t guess that they’re the same species.
It looks like there are three different stages going on here, but there are really only two. The green caterpillar in the center is in the second instar. The yellowish caterpillar on the right has just shed his second skin, and is in his third; in several hours, it will become more knobby and blue-white like the others. You can see the skin that he just walked out of, on the leaf at the bottom right of the picture.
Unfortunately, a lot of the eggs didn’t hatch, and there have been some significant die-offs; now, there are six. Hopefully, I’ll have enough to have at least one good pairing, so that I can have eggs for the next batch; otherwise, I’ll have to get eggs again.
fascinating little creatures. i’ve never thought seriously about raising insects before, but now i am.
…this is gonna sound stupid, but… do the big ones bully the little ones?
Umm… they don’t seem to really. It’s more a matter of they don’t really care if there’s one of the little ones in the way when they want to go somewhere – they kind of push them around, but it doesn’t seem to have a motive.
Some species, they’ll actually try to knock one another off the plant when they get older. This kind has been hand-reared for silk for so long, they’re pretty tame.
Domina
Last time I raised silkworms, there were two males and a female. The female ate significantly more and literally pushed the males off of the mulberry chow hill! I swear she did.
Oddly enough though, she attempted spinning in several corners when it was time, and couldn’t seem to get a good cocoon going. She finally just resigned herself to a corner and died. Her body slowly turned black. The two males came through fine.
Re: Domina
I hate when they die before cocooning! I’ve had that happen to at least a few, every time. I guess I don’t notice it as much, though, when there are four or five hundred of them all starting to spin at once…
How could you tell which ones were male and female before they hatched? I can never tell…