The Birds and the Bees.

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For the past couple of months, our family has played host to a bustling community of silk worms. These creepy, crawly, ugly things have munched their way through a ridiculous amount of mulberry leaves and I have found myself constantly cleaning up large piles of silk worm poop....nice.

A week or two ago they started to spin cocoons, and it was bliss not having to scrounge the neighbourhood for leaves to feed the little buggers.

Then, wonder of wonders we had moths, a huge shoebox full of the things.

Now according to the knowledgeable Miss 8, the moths don't need food...we just wait for them to lay eggs. But while we wait for the egg-laying to begin the moths are engaged in 'other' activities.

This was brought to my attention by a rather hysterical Miss 8 one afternoon......

'Mum! Mum! The moths are doing something weird!'
'What is it honey?' I asked, none the wiser.
'They're stuck together and they won't come apart!'
She showed me her moth collection and they were all....every single one of the gross little things....... were engaged in, well, moth sex.
'Look Mum, look! Their butts are stuck together! How do I make them stop?'
'We-ll, you don't want to make them stop, they're making babies'
Miss 8 stared at me in horrified disbelief while she digested this information.
'You mean they're doing that S-E-X thing?' she whispered
'Yes, yes they are'
'Oh eeeeew! That is so disgusting!
We stared at the little moth nymphos in silence for a few minutes.....they were really going for it.

'Ugh!' said Miss 8 as she gathered up her box of pro-creating insects, 'I'm going to put these under my bed'

'Why are you doing that' I asked

'Because, these guys need some serious privacy!'