Automeris io

• Morus alba—mulberry
• Prunus pensylvanica—pin cherry
• Salix—willow
• Abies balsamea—balsam fir
• Acer rubrum—red maple
• Amorpha fruticosa—bastard indigo
• Baptisia tinctoria—wild indigo
• Carpinus caroliniana—American hornbeam
• Celtis laevigata—sugarberry or southern hackberry
• Cephalanthus occidentalis—button-bush
• Cercis canadensis—eastern redbud
• Chamaecrista fasciculata—showy partridge pea
• Comptonia peregrina—sweetfern
• Cornus florida—flowering dogwood
• Corylus avellana—common hazel
• Erythrina herbacea—coral bean
• Fagus—beech
• Fraxinus—ash
• Liquidambar styraciflua—American sweetgum
• Lythrum salicaria—introduced purple loosestrife
• Quercus—oak Eggs, about 48 hours after they were laid, on a bay tree leaf
• Paeonia—peony
• Phoenix roebelenii

The eggs have large micropyle rosettes that turn black as the fertile eggs develop. They are usually laid in clusters of more than twenty and hatch within 8–11 days. From the eggs, orange larvae emerge, usually eating their egg shell soon after hatching. They go through five instars, each one being a little different.

The caterpillars are herbivorous and gregarious in all their instars, and may be seen traveling in single-file processions over the food plant. As the larvae develop, they will lose their orange color and will turn bright green and urticating, having many spines. The green caterpillars have two lateral stripes, the upper one being bright red and the lower one being white. These caterpillars can reach sizes of 7 cm in length. When the caterpillars are ready, they spin a flimsy, valveless cocoon made from a dark, coarse silk. Some larvae will crawl to the base of the tree and make their cocoons among leaf litter on the ground, while others will use living leaves to wrap their cocoons with. The leaves will turn brown and fall to the ground during fall, taking the cocoons with them. There they pupate, the pupa being dark brown/black. The pupae also have sexual dimorphism with the females' possessing a notch on their posterior ventral aspect, while the males' pupae bear a pair of tubercles near that area with no notch.

Adult Io moths normally emerge from their cocoons in late morning or early afternoon. The emergence of the adults moths is typically from June to July. Eclosion (emergence from the cocoon) only takes a few minutes. After eclosing, the moths climb and hang on plants so that their furled wings can be inflated with fluid (hemolymph) pumped from the body. This inflation process takes about twenty minutes.Adult moths are strictly nocturnal, generally flying during the peak hours of the night. The females generally wait until nightfall and then extend a scent gland from the posterior region of the abdomen, in order to attract males via wind-borne pheromones. The males use their larger antennae to detect the pheromones. After mating, the females die following egg laying. These moths have vestigial mouthparts and do not eat in the adult stage.