Then and Now

by Stephen Miller

I first heard of Bill Oehlke when I was a youngster in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. My brother gave me 4 luna cocoons for my birthday, somewhere around 1960. These he had purchased from Bill* (4/$1!), having seen his ad in Nature magazine. Needless to say it was a long winter, waiting for the moths to emerge in the spring. I had never seen a luna before then.

My interest in moths and butterflies, particularly the Saturniidae, first got going when I found a cecropia cocoon attached to the trunk of a weeping willow tree we had in the backyard. I remember finding young io larvae in the same tree and promethea cocoons on wild cherry trees in a vacant lot behind our house.

I also remember purchasing some io cocoons from Bill* at one point, and it seemed like it took them forever to arrive. Bill was kind enough to send me a postcard to let me know that the larvae were spending "too much time marching and not enough eating!"

The years between then and now have brought many changes, but I treasure those memories of my first experiences with the Lepidoptera. My wife, Lynn, and I now live near the little town of Browns Valley, California, which is at about 500' elevation on the western slope of the Sierra Nevada, approximately 60 miles north of Sacramento, where I teach music to elementary school children.

It can be very hot and very dry here during the summer months, not a particularly good climate for rearing most of the saturniid moths. I was fortunate enough, however, to receive a few eggs of Eacles oslari this summer and I'm pleased to report that the larvae are doing wonderfully well on our interior live oak.

This winter and/or next spring I hope to be able to find some egg-rings and/or larval clusters of Hemileuca eglanterina, a species that maintains good populations on willow and wild rose in the Central Valley (along the rivers).

I would like to share one more experience with you from those early days in Cedar Rapids. In addition to looking for Lepidoptera, I used to enjoy visiting a small zoo in a park near our home. One day as I was heading for the park on foot I came across some frass on the pavement beneath a maple tree, a sure sign of caterpillar activity in the foliage above. It didn't take me long to locate the creature responsible, an enormous brown larva of Eacles imperialis, the biggest caterpillar I had ever seen. But it was out of reach! The only solution to the problem was to return home for a stepladder and in the end I had my prize.

* Steve must have received the cocoons he mentions from my father, Don Oehlke. Dad was probably using my name for business purposes. In 1960, I was twelve years old.

Thanks for glimpse into past and present, Scott.