FOR SALE, Promethea Moth cocoons

Callosamia promethea --  Promethea Moth cocoons for sale.

Price:  $5.00 per cocoon.  Please add $5.00 USPS shipping for your entire order, including any other species I am offering in my other ads (my other ads will all have the same posting date and no photo).   The email address in this ad is my PayPal email address.  Payment by check or money order is also possible for my regular customers.  U.S.A. orders only, please.  Please do not send money until I have confirmed your order. 

Any small, underweight cocoons in this batch were removed and will not be sold.  Every order will have a mix of cocoons of varying weights to maximize the chance of both sexes being present.  However, I make no guarantees about the sex of the cocoons and I will not open cocoons to determine their gender.  These cocoons were reared from eggs obtained from reared females mated to wild Iowa males and the larvae were fed Wild Black Cherry leaves (Prunus serotina).

These cocoons are in diapause, so they can deal with whatever weather you will be having.  I recommend that you make a rodent-proof cage to protect the cocoons and place them immediately in an outdoor location, so they can develop in synchrony with any wild population in your area.  Just get some steel hardware cloth at your local hardware store.  Make a cylinder and fold over the ends perpendicular to each other, making it large enough for the emerging moths to expand their wings.  Hang the cage outdoors where it gets only natural light, but not direct sun.  Hang it out of reach of strong critters like raccoons, out of easy sight of birds, and where you can check on it easily.  Transfer the cocoons to a more suitable cage and bring indoors after the first moth emerges.  I will be offering eggs of this species off and on from mid-May through early June.  The female Promethea Moth is brown and flies at night.  The male Promethea Moth is black and flies by day.  Most moths mate at night, but the female Promethea Moth calls the males with a pheromone in the late afternoon, so it is easy to watch the wild males arrive and hunt for her.  Be sure to hide her well so birds won’t find her.