After our success last year in looking after the caterpillars until they pupated we were keen to see how many adult Emperor Moths might emerge this spring. We were so pleased when 22 Emperor Moths successfully hatched out and were released into the wild.

We watched some emerge from their cocoons. It was so exciting to see the newly hatched adult moths slowly unfolding their wings.

When placed in a net some of the female Emperor Moths attacted males from the wild with their smells. On our blog you can see a video of one of our reared female Emperor Moths mating with a male from the wild.

Once mated the females then laid eggs on the sides of the net. After a few weeks the eggs hatched out and once more we had hungry Emperor Moth caterpillars to feed!