Fifth instar hybrid of male Actias dubernardi x female Actias luna,
courtesy of Rob Mayo, compliments of Katelyn Mayo.
Female hybrid of male Actias dubernardi x female Actias luna,
courtesy of Rob Mayo, compliments of Katelyn Mayo.
Hi All,
July 19: Long time WLSS member and trusted friend Dirk Bayer of Alabama has suffered a major heart attack. His wife Patsy alerted me on Tuesday; he experienced the attack that morning. He is in my prayers.
I have received an email from Dirk that he is home and is feeling much better. That is very good news.
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Summer is rapidly approaching. Once again I will be offering eggs of many Saturniidae species, with eggs being supplied to US destinations via US breeders who ship for me under my shipping label. Either I or other Canadian breeders, who will also ship under my label, will be shipping eggs to Canadian destinations. Not all species will be available in Canada. Not all species will be available overseas.
Please visit 2011 Saturniidae eggs: species, prices, payment methods and policies before ordering any eggs.
For my own records: Alabama luna eggs (DB) became available March 24, 2011; polyphemus eggs (DB) became available March 25, Cecropia eggs (DB) became available March 28. Securifera became available last week, regalis from Alabama became available on April 18. All of these will produce multiple broods except for the cecropia.
These species and many more will be available on and off throughout the season. Be sure to include your shipping address in the text of the email when placing an order.
Wild luna laying in Alabama April 3-4; polyphemus mating 3-4; cecropia, securifera early to mid April; regalis April 18; wild female io April 20; wild female imperialis, April 22.
Luna laying in Maryland (BM) April 27.
Promethea laying in Maryland May 29.
Luna, polyphemus, cecropia, June 1, Wisconsin; promethea June 3 (IM).
Luna, polyphemus, cecropia, June 1, Pennsylvania (NB).
Io, angulifera, cecropia, luna, sepulcralis, June 3, Virginia (DRS).
P. modesta (IM) in Wisconsin, June 4.
Cecropia in PA (DK); luna Wisconsin (IM)
Regalis mid to late June (PA, VA, MD), more expected even into early July (WV).
Imperialis expected late June early July (PA, second brood in AL)
Second brood luna and poly expected in July from NJ, PA, WI.
Some Heraclides cresphontes (giant swallowtail) pupae have already been shipped from Alabama, and more will be available shortly after Easter, and probably off and on throughout season.
Luna and polyphemus cocoons should be available mid to late May from the first spring flights in Alabama.
Luna cocoons are ready for shipping May 12. There are also more cresphontes ready for shipping, May 12.
Polyphemus laying after pairing with wild male in Staten Island, New York, (TJ), May 9-10.
Cecropia in Virginia May 15 (DRS); May 14 in Wisconsin (IM); May 20 in New York (TJ).
Luna again in Wisconsin, May 22 (IM).
Luna cocoons available for shipping from New Jersey, June 19 (all spoken for); probably more in two to three weeks.
Regalis eggs available from multiple sources early to mid June: Maryland, Virginia, Pennsylvania.
Hyalophora gloveri and Antheraea polyphemus eggs available from Colorado, mid June.
Eacles imperialis eggs, July 4, Pennsylvania (NB).
Actias luna eggs, July 4, second brood, Maryland (BM).
Hyalophora cecropia eggs, July 4, Pennsylvania (DK).
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We have been having relatively cool damp weather here on PEI and I have not seen any butterflies as yet, May 16, but I have started taking cocoons out of cold storage.
May 13: one female polyphemus, several males; one or two female lunas, several males; female columbia; one or two female cecropia; all io and promethea.
Small male luna eclosed June 2, followed by two small males and female on June 3, male on June 4, male on June 5.
May 16: two female poly, two female luna; female Columbia; one or two female cecropia; all Sphingidae and other earth pupators.
May 19: several female poly; several female luna; four cecropia, a couple of additional Sphingidae I missed on May 16.
I have just a couple of large luna (two luna) and polyphemus (two polyphemus) that I will take out of cold storage on May 23 (done).
We had first really nice warm sunny day of May on May 19. Mostly overcast, cool and or rainy for earlier May. Had to work in shirt sleeves yesterday on roof as it was too warm for coveralls. While driving late at night on May 19th I was seeing quite a few moths and June bugs, but earliest I have ever seen Saturniidae here is May 26 in a year when we had a warm early spring. I will probably put my 175 watt MV light up on roof top weekend of May 28, maybe not even then if it remains cool.
The cocoons I have taken out of cold storage are currently sitting in three open boxes (Sphingidae and other earth pupators in sealed plastic tub) on kitchen table. This time of year daytime house temperatures are usually in high 50's to low 60's, and I light the wood burning stove in late afternoon and burn some wood all night for night time temps in high 60's to low seventies. I will likely move cocoons outside in another few days. If I want to force a few earlier, I will put them in a spare bedroom with a space heater and raise temps to high 70s to low 80s.
Two female columbia emerged June 8 and have failed to call in males as of June 13. Remarkably they have not started dumping eggs yet, so I will try again tomorrow morning. Days have also been relatively cool as well, but I did get a polyphemus pairing on her third night out, June 12. Two males showed up at her cage after a reasonably warm day. It has been very cold at night, June 8-11.
No wild lunas have flown in to pair with two caged females, and weather for the next three to four days is supposed to contnue cool and rainy. When the moths do start flying, they will probably all come in a rush.
I did get two indoor pairings of Anisota virginiensis, June 10 and June 12. They pair up quite readily in indoor cages.
A female columbia eclosed June 17, but failed to call in a male on June 18 as I was travelling and did not set her out. I set her out on June 19 but previous day was cool and rainy and she did not attract a male. I will put her out as well as a cage with two female lunas tonight in a different location and will check the cages around 4:30 am. I finally got a pairing of this female columbia on June 22.
I did get luna pairings and polyphemus pairings on June 18.
Male promethea eclosed June 19. Additional promethea emerged after providing extra heat and I obtained a promethea pairing in cage in car on ferry ride to Nova Scotia on June 24.
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On Friday night, June 24, I was with a fellow collector/friend, Derek Bridgehouse, in Malay Falls, Nova Scotia. Temperatures dropped to 7 C or 44-45F.
We have been having an exceptionally cold, wet spring in Atlantic Canada.
My friend Derek has a keen interest in Hyalophora species. He had earlier eclosions of female Hyalophora columbia and he kept the adult females refrigerated for approximately two weeks so he would have them live to call in male columbia for our planned trip to Malay Falls. Derek also had a refrigerated female cecropia.
Wild male cecropia began responding to the female cecropia shortly after 9:30 pm and were showing up almost to midnight when we retired.
The area has very healthy luna, rubicunda, polyphemus populations as well as the two Hyalophora species. We have been making annual trips to this location in late June for the last 13-14 years. This year we saw no luna or polyphemus. I think it was just too cold. A few rubicunda males showed up at the lights and there was one male each of the following Sphingidae: Ceratomia undulosa, Lapara coniferarum, Paonias excaecata, and Pachysphinx modesta. Usually we see those species and lots of Sphinx kalmiae, Sphinx poecila, Darapsa choerilus, and sometimes Sphinx drupiferarum males and females. I guess it was too cold for them too this Friday night.
We arose just prior to 4:00 am to check the lights and the calling females which were in cages inaccessible to males.
Already at the lights were two male columbia, and six to eight additional male columbia flew in between 4:00 and 5:30 am when we went back to bed.
Male columbia are seldom seen in collections because they are seldom seen at lights. The calling time of the females is at dawn. Females do come to lights, but not as frequently as females of some other Saturniidae species.
One of the female columbia that had been refrigerated for approximately two weeks was calling. We do not know if the male columbia were responding to her or to the female cecropia which was also calling.
I started going to Malay Falls for the specific reason of getting columbia stock for breeding. A couple of years later I was surprised to find there are local populations right here on PEI. Now I just go mostly for the friendship, and of course to get some eggs of various Saturniidae and Sphingidae species which are usually plentiful.
When I had enquired about Saturniidae on PEI many years ago at the university, there were no records at UPEI for columbia, so I had just assumed they were not here.
I write this extensive note for several reasons:
1) there are often undocumented species present in an area (recent 2011 report in Minnesota south of known range), especially an area that is not well collected.
Species such as columbia, where males have an "unusual"
flight time, often go undetected.
2) unmated female columbia and cecropia often go much longer than females of other species before dumping unfertilized eggs.
I obtained two pairings this year, one with a five day old non-refrigereated female and one with a four day old non-refrigerated female. Althought they were
non-refirigerated, they might as well have been as the outside night and dawn temperatures were in the 40's F.
3) refrigerating females can greatly increase their lifespan and does seem to impede their ability to call once they have been "warmed" or are at least exposed to
temps above 45 F.
4) Male cecropia and columbia will respond to calling females at temps as low as 44-45 F.
One year in Malay Falls we must have hit a peak flight as we save over fifty male columbia at dawn at our light stand where we had caged females, inaccessable to the males. Almost always the males were called in by the pheromone, but when they got close to the females, the attraction to the lights was even stronger and they ended up on the sheets.
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Ryan Saint Laurent writes, "Today I went on a caterpillar hunt at my usual location here in Washington County, Rhode Island, and I came across some interesting finds.
"Firstly I found two luna larvae on a grey birch (Betula populifolia) sapling, I know they are found on white birch but I was unaware that they fed on grey.
"I found MANY polyphemus larvae on this trip, on grey birch, red maple, and surprisingly a huge one on Myrica pensylvanica, the very same Myrica bush I found that luna on a couple summers ago! Your site lists polyphemus on a different Myrica sp. but not pensylvanica. I will be sure to check that bush each year, who knows what I'll find next.
"I also came across a small group of Anisota stigma, a rare species for Rhode Island."
Many thanks to Ryan for this report. I will update the appropriate pages.
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Rob Mayo has had a successful pairing of an Actias dubernardi male with an Actias luna female. He sends images, compliments of his sixteen year old daughter Katelyn Mayo, of an egg hatchling hybrid, a six day old larva, a fifth instar larva, and a hybrid female. He has more cocoons to hatch.
See the hybrid section for additional pictures.
Fifth instar hybrid of male Actias dubernardi x female Actias luna,
courtesy of Rob Mayo, compliments of Katelyn Mayo.
Female hybrid of male Actias dubernardi x female Actias luna,
courtesy of Rob Mayo, compliments of Katelyn Mayo.
Rob has now had a male emerge.
Male hybrid of male Actias dubernardi x female Actias luna,
courtesy of Rob Mayo, compliments of Katelyn Mayo.
Please note: I reside in Canada at the following address and payment for Saturniidae livestock (eggs, cocoons, pupae) and/or sleeves must be sent to me only at this address:
Bill Oehlke
Box 476
155 Peardon Road
Montague, Prince Edward Island, C0A 1R0
Canada
Postage from USA to Canada is $0.79 so please use that amount on your envelope with your payment.
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Sphingidae Express
Many beautiful images of Sphingidae have been arriving and I am trying to keep up with id work and website postings. Edna Woodward continues to amaze me with her observations and images. She has recently sent images of most instars of Hemaris thetis, along with observations, from Wolf Creek, Josephine County, Oregon. She was also recently delighted with a large Coloradia pandora male that she took at her light.
Equally disappointing were the parasitic wasps that emerged from her found Hemileuca eglanterina larvae. She has sent images of the parasitoids, and I wil lpost them shortly.
Greg Bingaman recently captured female Eumorpha pandorus at his light trap, with females arriving around 4:00 am.
Here is some of our back and forth correspondence:
July 28, 2011:
"Hi Bill,
"It is said to be common, but I finally light trapped my first one (Eumorpha pandorus) around 4am today. Now being that I don't have any expereince with them, I can't sex the thing. I did look it up on your sphinx file and it says "females larger than males" this one is large, heavy and thick bodied but I'm having trouble getting it to expose its genitals. Should the male have pronounced claspers?
"Could the time of capture suggest the sex? and if it is female, is there a good chance that it is fertile, being that it was taken at the light? It isn't beat up, but its also not without some light wear.
"Any help would be great, Ive been waiting a long time for this even though Im not a sphinx guy."
I reply:
"Hi Greg,
"I was never able to sex them as a boy in New Jersey, and both males and females have stout bodies, but females are especially heavy with eggs which are small.
"Eggs incubate quite rapidly. You can put moth in inflated brown paper lunch bag or you can put it in a sleeve over live hostplant and see if you get eggs.
I suggest the latter. You might also need to feed it a 10% sugar water solution to get max egg production.
"I do not know about the timing, but that might be the time that females fly, although females of most species tend to fly shortly after dark.
If it is a female, it is almost certainly fertile.
"Hope you have success."
July 29: "Good news- SHE is laying tonight. Yesterday I fed her sugar water and stuffed a 12 x 18 screen cage with grape and creeper. Quite a few ova were noticed just with a flashlight.
"This should be exciting."
"Congratulations. Best of luck with them. You probably should feed her every day. Use a fresh solution."
"Thanks. I just collected another female this morning. same time. I will feed every day instead of every other. This pandorus seemed to lay just fine being fed last evening."
I am pretty sure egg incubation time is very short, maybe even as few as four days. If you take photos, I would like to document your rearing experience on my Sphingidae of Americas website."
"I collected the ova from female 1 and counted 68. after I talked to you earlier about the second female, a male was taken at 5:30am.
"I will be taking plenty of pics and documenting the expereince. I'll keep you posted on the progress."
I hope Greg has great success with rearing these through and can document the process with images and notes.
Ian Miller reports taking a female pandorus at 11:45 pm in Eau Claire County, July 29, 2011, so it appears that females will fly much earlier than experienced by Greg.
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Catocala Capers
Gary Phillips has sent me the following beautiful image from Conway, South Carolina.
Catocala carissima, Conway, Horry County, South Carolina,
July 5, 2011, courtesy of Gary Phillips.
Catocala antinympha form multiconspicua, Sidney, Kennebec County, Maine,
July 29, 2011, courtesy of Steve Lemieux.
See Dave's images on the Massachusetts page.
The Sphingidae of the Americas, and the North American Catocala websites are available from WLSS site via links on the home page.
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