Articles

The Luna Moth

By Brad T. Bromling

Can you imagine going a day without food? Would you go a whole month or two without eating? It’s hard to believe, but that is what a luna moth does. Instead of eating, it spends its adult life looking for a mate. After mating and laying eggs, its life is over.

Luna moths normally begin life in the month of June, when mother moths lay their eggs on leaves. After about three weeks, a hungry little caterpillar hatches from each egg. It eats constantly and stores up a s much fat as it can. A luna caterpillar grows so fast that in just eight weeks it sheds its skin five times!

At the end of summer, the fat caterpillar crawls onto a leaf and spins a cocoon around itself. When the leaves drop in the fall, the cocoon is covered by leaves and rests on the forest floor until spring. While in its cocoon, the caterpillar changes slowly into a moth. When spring comes, it emerges from its cocoon as one of the prettiest of all God’s creatures.

Sidebar: “Luna” is the Latin name for the Moon. This is where the moth got its name. It is active only at night, so you are more likely to see luna moths by the light of the moon.

Discovery September 1994 pg. 66