A glorious surprise!

Last April we had an ice storm, and our trees ended up looking like this.

We lost quite a few branches, and Grandpa had to cut down a lot of broken ones. On one of the branches he'd cut, I noticed a large cocoon, so I cut off the part of the branch it was on. Here's what it looked like.

I had no idea what would be in that type of cocoon, and I asked my Instagram followers if any of them knew. No one could help me out, but one person said it would be something big! That sounded exciting, and since I was curious as to what might eventually hatch out of it, I put it in one of our kids' old "critter cages" and set it in the garage in a place where I'd be sure to notice it every day.

I waited and waited, but it seemed like the time for it to hatch was probably past, and I sorta gave up on it ever happening because it looked pretty dried up. Yet, I still looked at it every day, out of habit mostly. As of Monday morning, it still hadn't changed.

Then Monday evening, I glanced at it and was amazed to see this!

It was so huge! I didn't even know if it would fit through the door of the cage, but I removed the empty cocoon, got it to crawl onto my finger and carefully dragged it through. It seemed quite content to remain on my finger. It obviously had just recently hatched, so it still needed time to stretch its wings before it could take off.

Here it is stretched out next to its cocoon.

Upon closer examination of the cocoon, I couldn't even at first see where it had gotten out. But then I noticed this tiny hole in the end of it.

Yep, that's where it came out! I later did some researching to find out first of all what it was and then more about it coming out of that tiny hole. I happened to discover on Instagram a video of one hatching. It's quite a struggle! As someone said, it's rather like a human giving birth to a baby! :)

Isn't it glorious, though?! Research quickly told me that it's a female Cecropia Moth, the largest moth in North America! I had heard of them before but never seen one in real life that wasn't already dead and on public display in someone's collection.

They're so HUGE! I measured the wing span on this one and it was just over six inches! You may notice the wing tips are bent a bit. That's because it didn't have enough room in the cage to fully stretch them before they dried. I doubt it would affect its ability to fly, though.

It was so beautiful! The males look the same except they have much larger antennae (to better detect the presence of a female, which they can do from up to a mile away!) and a smaller body. I love the "furryiness" of its body, too.

Need a little more size reference? Here it is on the front of my shirt!

It wasn't ready to fly yet, but Grandpa and I needed supper, which was already overdue thanks to my discovery, so we put it on the maple tree that the cocoon had been on originally.

That was the last we saw of it.

Sadly, these beautiful moths only have a two-week life span. They have no mouth parts or digestive system, so they can't eat anything to live on. They live only to reproduce. Seems like a waste of such a beautiful creature, doesn't it? But knowing that makes me appreciate even more the gift I had in finding one. Needless to say, my day was made!