Hi All,
This will probably be the last individual mailout of the "Mothly Newsletter". I suspect there will be approximately three hundred members by end of the year and it is just too time consuming to send out individual emails.
I do want you to know, however, what has been going on, so I will post a newsletter to the site on the 15th-20th of each month.
P.E.I. spring weather was cool and wet and Saturniidae didn't start flying here until mid June. Then everything seemed to come at once.
Most of the sats are done, but I did take a female rosy maple at lights last night and am still seeing many Sphingidae species. I also took a female Paonias excaecatus at lights July 14. The Catocala will probably start flying here in early August.
I have thousands of tiny larvae out in sleeves and will have a "Sleeving" article posted to site by end of month as well as a special feature on Citheronia regalis.
The Catocala concumbens and Catocala relicta eggs that I overwintered in fridge crisper emerged successfully and larvae have been sleeved out.
Dryocampa rubicunda and Anisota virginiensis pupae overwintered successfully and I have taken wild females and obtained pairings of reared females with wild males so should be able to add them to livestock listings in the fall.
I have Actias luna, Antheraea polyphemus, Callosamia promethea, Hyalophora cecropia and Hyalophora columbia feeding, and also have several Sphingidae on the go: Pachysphinx modesta, Smerinthus jamaicensis, Sphinx poecila, Darapsa pholus, and may yet get a couple more (female excaecatus is laying now).
Kirby Wolfe and Bernhard Wenczel have indicated that images of newly described South American species will be coming soon. I will post them as soon as their official publications have been released.
Many thanks to all have provided information for the county by county maps for the United States. Most of the states now have posted maps, and I am just about ready to upload the great state of Texas! I get many images and sightings from non-members as well and am constantly updating the data bases.
Thanks to Russell Witkop for sending images of early instar larvae of Hemileuca hera magnifica and Citheronia sepulcralis. Images have been added to files for those two species.
I'm also scanning the many butterfly slides sent to me by Leroy Simon and am going to create a Butterfly Site, similar to WLSS.
James F. Snyder, from Kailua-Kona, Hawaii and several others have indicated they will also assist (images and information) with this project.
Check out the "Aberrant or Hybrid" Polyphemus picture and info at http://www.insectcompany.com/silkmoth/blackpolyphemus.htm
The female paired with a wild male and I am rearing about one hundred larvae.
Also checkout the very pale cecropia just sent to me by
Dave Clermont at
http://www.insectcompany.com/silkmoth/clermontcecropia.htm
********NEWSLETTERS:***********
Membership continues to grow and I now archive all editions of the "Mothly Newsletter" on site. That may provide an interesting historical overview of the site's development and will allow new members to "catch up" on things they might have missed.
I also found a few of the older ones from 2002 and posted those as well.
*********SPECIAL REQUESTS*********
Save your empty cocoons for Carol Neeves. She works with the silk and would like all the empties you can send her. Carol has just set me a write up with pictures to show what she does with the silk (now posted in Members' Articles section).
Neeves, Carol, 1609 Ponderosa Drive, Sioux Falls, South Dakota 57103
CANeeves@aol.com
Janet Hightower is also looking for empty cocoons. She is doing a project on making rattles out of cocoons, and promises us some images and an article after she makes some noisemakers.
Janet Hightower, 1319 Ahlrich Avenue, Encinitas, California 92024 janet@scripps.edu
This special note goes to all subscribers to AOL
email/internet service. I will communicate with
you using a hotmail account I have set up.
AOL users please write to me at
oehlkew@hotmail.com I will maintain your addresses in my
hotmail file,
and communicate with you from there.
Have a good season. I've just retired from thirty-two years of teaching so should have much more time to devote to Lepidoptera, starting this fall.
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