It is a member of the Saturniidae family of moths, which are commonly known as silk moths. As with all Saturniidae moths, the Cecropia does all its eating in the larva stage. The adult moth has no mouth and cannot eat. The moth lives for one to two weeks, during which time it finds a mate and the female lays eggs.
During the first or second night after emerging from the cocoon, the female releases a scent that males can detect from many miles away. This is known as "calling." The males have much larger antennae than the female, which is used to detect the female's call. The only other distinguishing characteristic between male and female Cecropias is the larger abdomen of the female, which must carry the eggs.
The host plant for the larva includes the prunus family (cherry, apple, pear, etc.), lilac, sweet gum, and many others. We feed them apple and lilac and have noticed that they larva will mature much faster on apple. Once they have started feeding on one kind of plant, Cecropia have been known to reject other kinds of leaves. The fifth instar is an impressive caterpillar, measuring about 5 inches at rest and capable of stretching to 6 or 7 inches. It's a good 1/2 to 3/4 inches round, light green in color with a number of colored spikes on its back. See some of our caterpillar pictures.
Unlike the Luna or Polyphemus, two other North American Saturniidae moths, there is only one brood of Cecropia per year. The moth overwinters as a cocoon.
In the summer of 1995, we were given three Cecropia moth caterpillars. They
made cocoons in the fall and we left them in a bird cage outside all winter.
This spring (1996), two of the three moths emerged. One was a female. We
put her in the cage and left her outside one night. We found her mating
with a male Cecropia. We also found another male was waiting in the wings
(so to say).
The female laid eggs and about 50 of them hatched. We tried to raise the caterpillars indoors, but they soon died. We kept a chronology of the disaster. Our neighbors, though, found a total of 5 mature caterpillars that fall and gave them to us. They made cocoons and emerged in the spring of 1997.
We got one of the females to mate with a wild male by setting the cage outside again, and a friend of Samantha's found another female laying eggs at her father place of business. About 100 eggs emerged, and we placed them in larva sleeves on our Crabapple, Cleveland Pear, and Lilac trees. We have a number of pictures to document the growth of these caterpillars.
Here are some pictures of these moths
 This is the female moth that emerged from our cocoon. She had a wingspan of about 5-6 inches. |  This is the underside of the female. Note the large red-spotted abdomen. It is very fuzzy and much prettier on the real thing. |  This is the male moth. The picture was taken after mating with the female. His wingspan was over 6 inches. |  This is a picture taken of the two moths mating. The male is on the outside. The female can barely be seen on the inside of the cage. |
Address questions or comments to: Scott Henninger, scotth#cse.unl.edu (to prevent automated SPAM systems, I have replaced the normal '@' symbol - just put it back in to send a message)