OF FAILURES AND LEARNING: By the Butterfly Lady, Pat Schuler

I've delayed writing this too long, I believe.  It's so much more enjoyable to write about successes and all the wonderful learning experiences involved in those. However, I once commented to a friend that I have learned more by my failures than I ever have through successes.  Charlie is fond of quoting Thomas Edison, who invented the light bulb, but with many failures along the way. When asked what those failures accomplished, he is supposed to have said, " I learned 2,000 ways NOT to make a light bulb".
Sadly, we often just go on making the same mistakes, not learning from failure.  Or, worse yet, we grow discouraged and stop trying, possibly just one try short of success.
     At any rate, this year, after two previous years of trying to get a Cecropia moth mating, I finally did get a female to attract a wild male and mate through the wire mesh of the breeding cage.  Possibly, I think, the females stored in my fridge over the winter may not have emerged at the same time as the native males, and thus not have had the good fortune of having many amorous males around.  Timing is everything in such matters!  Eggs were subsequently laid, and hatched. The tiny new caterpillars took eagerly to the food I had read was their usual preferred diet.  Of course, I have pictures of each stage.  For several weeks they grew well, and I had the pleasure of watching their interesting color changes.  They began black, then changed color with each successive molt.  Incidentally, the time between molts is called an "instar".  There are generally about five instars before the caterpillar spins a cocoon and sheds its last caterpillar skin, to become a pupa, from which it will emerge a moth.  Then, just as I was congratulating myself on not having had any losses among these caterpillars, disaster struck . Whether I unwittingly introduced disease with the leaves I was feeding, or possibly from cross contamination from the Luna and Polyphemus caterpillars I was also caring for at the same time, I may never know.  However, they developed diarrhea and vomiting, dehydrated and died quickly.  The entire hatching was lost.  I found myself comparing this epidemic to descriptions of cholera outbreaks in human refugee camps.  Being reasonably certain I was dealing with an infectious process, I have been disinfecting all cages and paraphenalia used in any way in raising .  I've also begun washing and drying leaves before introducing them as food, and have been even more careful about hand washing between cages. So much for technical learning.  But we can also learn persistence and patience as we try to apply our human efforts in working within God's created order.  Maybe that's what He really wants us to learn, anyway!
     Meanwhile, back at the emerging cage ----- The first brood of Polyphemus and Lunas are emerging as beautiful moths and being released into the neighborhood.  I may not raise any second brood of "polys", but have two groups of eggs from two of the Lunas bred to wild males.  There's something so appealing about those pale green moths with their graceful trailing "tails" that I just want to have some more cocoons in my fridge waiting for next year's Spring to start the whole thing all over again! 
     The attachments show Cecropia caterpillars from newly hatched through several color changes.  The last attachment is the adult moth.