The horned worm that got away!

[Bruce]

Well apparently squish missed a horned worm and it cocooned under the substrate in her enclosure! Just about scared the **** out of me, it's weird looking! Think if it fully metamorphosises into a hawk moth it will be ok for her to eat? (squish is a fully grown female pacman)

[Heatheranne]

That's pretty cool. I found this picture for you .

[Heatheranne]

Sorry, it wouldn't load. I'll text it to you.

[JeffreH]

Very cool = )

It will likely become a moth if you allow it to do so, but if you want it to survive you will need a screen or some surface that it can climb onto immediately in order to fill its wings properly. When I bred these, I reared them in large screen enclosures which allowed the moths to emerge from the pupae onto a flat, vertical surface. It is imperative that they have this upon emerging or they're wings will become useless and they will die.

You could try feeding the pupae to the frog if you wish, but the exoskeleton becomes more 'firm' than that of the larvae. For this reason I prefer to feed the larval worms over the pupae. If you allow a few to mature, they really are not all that difficult to breed...especially this time of year while things are warm and tomato/pepper plant starts can be purchased for cheap. *These would only be used as a laying surface for the moths eggs.... you would obviously remove the eggs from the leaves before emerging so that the larvae cannot come into contact with the plants due to their toxicity to herps after ingestion.

Or you could feed the moth... heck... let it emerge and don't give it a surface to fill its wings and it will be a large, helpless crawling moth for your pacman =P