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Manduca Life Cycle: the adult stage |
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World
of Insects
World of Manduca Rearing
Manducas Activities Resources |
Videos
In research | Life cycle | The egg | The larva | The pupa | The adult |
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The Manduca
Project |
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The
pupa completes its development in 19 to 23 days and the adult Manduca
sexta emerges. The adult is a large, gray moth with a wingspan of
up to 10 centimeters (4 inches). It has dense scaling, banded hindwings,
and six orange-yellow spots along each side of the abdomen (hence the
scientific name "sexta"). The proboscis, which first appeared as a conspicuous
"jug-like handle" in the pupa, becomes a tightly-coiled siphon in the
adult. Unlike the chewing mouthparts of the larvae, this siphon can
be uncoiled and used like a soda straw to sip nectar, the adults' only
food. 
Adults
are strong flyers, active at dawn and dusk, and may often be seen hovering
hummingbird-like from flower to flower. Within two days after emerging
from the pupa, adults begin mating. The females lay eggs once (up to
200 of them) on the kinds of host plants their larvae prefer to eat.
After an average life span of about a week, the adults die, leaving
the garden to the next generation of hungry caterpillars. 
