The Manduca Project

Manduca Life Cycle: the egg stage

World of Insects
     Life without them
So many of them
    Secrets of their success
    Family tree
    Major insect order
Insect Anatomy

World of Manduca
    In research
    Life cycle
The egg
    The larva
    The pupa
    The adult
Videos

Rearing Manducas
What you need
Care and Feeding
Building larva box
Constructing rearing box
Preparing diet

Activities
    Lesson plans
    Posters
    Coloring book (English)
Coloring book (Spanish)

Resources
    Glossary
    English/Spanish vocab.
    Bibliography
Bibliografía
    Web resources

Print Manual

Manduca sexta lays its eggs on the underside of the leaves of its favorite food plant. The tiny, pale eggs are a little over 1 millimeter in diameter and weigh about 1 milligram. A Manduca adult lays eggs just once–but she typically lays up to 200 of them! photograph of magnified eggs on a leaf

Videos

Egg Laying
The female lays her eggs on the underneath edge of a tobacco leaf. Egg laying occurs at dusk, so this video was shot in the dark. Note how many eggs are on the leaf.

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Hatching.
After embryonic development is complete, the larvae chews on the egg shell until it creates a large enough hole to squeeze through into the outside world.

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