Hyalophora columbia female, Charlottetown. PEI,
June 21, 2015, courtesy of Corey Arsenault, id and slight digital repair by Bill Oehlke.
Hyalophora columbia female, Charlottetown. PEI,
June 21, 2015, courtesy of Corey Arsenault.
Hi All,
Happy Father's Day to all the Dads out there, June 21.
Below is accounting of what has been happening here on PEI with dates on which I took cocoons out of cold storage.
May 13: 3 luna; 2 polyphemus; 1 cecropia; eclosions: June 5: male luna; male polyphemus; June 6 two male luna; June 8 two female polyphemus, hoping to get a
poly pairing or two June 10 as another
male poly emerged June 10
May 15: 3 luna; 2 polyphemus; 1 cecropia; 1 columbia: eclosions: June 8 female luna; June 9 female luna, both paired one with a wild male; June 10:
female columbia emerged and will be set out for hopeful pairing around 5:00 am June 11. This female never paired
May 17: 5 luna; 3 polyphemus; 2 cecropia; 1 columbia: eclosions:
May 20: 3 luna; 1 polyphemus; 1 cecropia; 1 columbia; week of June 7-14; two male cecropia eclosed, not females yet; female columbia emerged June 13 and
paired on 14th;
four female polyphemus emerged, two paired; one female luna emerged and paired
May 23: 2 luna; 2 polyphemus; 1 cecropia: June 15 two female luna and 1 male luna emerged; 1 female paired; June 16 male poly emerged; June 16 male and female luna emerged
May 25: 1 luna; 1 polyphemus
July 7 a female cecropia emerged but did not all in a mate. There may not be any more cecropia flying here on PEI at this late date, but I will try her again tonight. I still have another cecropia cocoon that feels good and a live luna pupa (inspected)) that have not emerged. Normally both would have emerged by this date.
As of June 16 I have had four luna pairings, four polyphemus pairings and one columbia pairing. My cecropia females (hope I have four in cocoons, still have not eclosed, but I am expecting them to start this week. It has been a cool, late spring, and we are seeing few Saturniidae at lights, although I did take a male cecropia about a week ago, and did see first rosy maple of the year, last night, June 15, in Elliotvale.
As of June 22, I have had two or three additional luna pairings, one polyphemus pairing and one cecropia pairing. It has been a difficult spring as I have had females out calling when night times temps simply got too cold for the males to be flying. We have also had some night where rain was falling to hard for flights to occur.
I am still planing on going to Nova Scotia on the weekend June 26-28 and hope to get females at lights, and as of June 22 I stil have two or three cecropia cocoons, and probably a single luna and polyphemus cocoon that could stil yield female moths in the next couple of days. It is raining here now as I write, and rain is supposed to continue at least until Wednsday when it is supposed to clear.
I received an email report from a fellow in Charlottetown, PE, on Sunday morning, June 21, of a female Hyalophora columbia that he encountered in a business parking lot, and male cecropias are still being seen both in Montague and Elliotvale where I have lights. So far we have encountered ten male cecropia but no females.
Hyalophora columbia female, Charlottetown. PEI,
June 21, 2015, courtesy of Corey Arsenault, id and slight digital repair by Bill Oehlke.
Hyalophora columbia female, Charlottetown. PEI,
June 21, 2015, courtesy of Corey Arsenault.
On Friday and Saturday, June 26-27, Derek Bridgehouse and I will be making our annual collecting trip to Malay Falls, Nova Scotia. I am hoping for some warmer weather and that we will take some female Saturniidae and Sphingidae at lights we put up at two different locations. Often over the two nights we get females of luna, polyphemus, cecropia, columbia, and rubicunda; sometimes in abundance, occasionally almost nothing. The forecast for the weekend of our trip is currently (June 24) calling for some very cool weather.
Wild female polyphemus and wild female modesta taken in Elliotvale, June 25. Two wild female columbia taken in Malay Falls June 26, 27. Caged female cecropia and caged female columbia paired with wild males in Malay Falls. +++++++++++++++++++
I am now taking orders for rearing sleeves. If you are thinking of doing any rearing outdoors, now would be the time to order sleeves before I get too busy with my own rearing.
Visit 2015 Egg Prices to see what is expected for spring and summer of 2015 in way of eggs, and also sizes and prices for sleeves. If any of you would like to become an egg shipping partners for 2015, please send me an email, indicating what Saturniidae species you anticipate having and when. I am also looking for additional sources of overwintering Saturniidae cocoons and pupae as well as overwintering swallowtail pupae.
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Rothschildia lebeau forbesi larvae in Texas should spin cocoons week of June 12-19. If you would like to order them, do so now. They are 6.50 US/cocoon and one shipping and handling fee of $9.00 whether you order one cocoon or twenty cocoons, etc. These are expected to emerge in very late June into July. Shipments to US destinations only.
Eupackardia calleta cocoons are available right now from Texas at $6.50/cocoon (only twenty-four left as of June 16) plus $9.00 S & H. These are expected to emerge in September 2015, but sometimes calleta will spend two winters in cocoon so might emerge spring of 2016 or even spring of 2017 or fall (September) of 2016.
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To assist us all with an idea of when eggs become available in any given year, the following information is being recorded:
Actias luna eggs shipped from North Carolina, April 1; from Alabama, April 2; Connecticut May 17-18 several wild males flying in and pairing (AB);
Connecticut May 27; June 4 Wisconsin; June 8, 13, 14 Alabama; July 6-7 caged female lunas pairing with wild fly in males in Albany, New York area.
Antheraea polyphemus shipped from both Alabama and North Carolina, April 14, Alabama May 8; Alabama May 15; Alabama May 22; New York (BP) May 29-June 1;
Wisconsin: June 2; June 10, 14, 15 New York.
Automeris io shipped from Alabama, May 15 wild caught female (DB); June 4, 14 Wisconsin
Callosamia promethea shipped from North Carolina, April 11; May 4 Virginia; May 25 Connecticut.
Hyalophora cecropia eggs shipped from Alabama, April 4; May 14 North Carolina; May 26-28 North Carolina (AH); May 29-June 1-4; 14 Wisconsin (IM).
Eacles imperialis eggs shipped from Alabama, June 1, wild caught female (DB)
Citheronia regalis eggs shipped from Maryland June 22-25
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I remain very busy with creation of an alternate WLSS site on a location that will not require a login or password. The site is still a private site and members are expected to keep access confidential.
I am also streamlining the opening page to make it more user friendly (easier to find things). The renaming and relinking of the thousands of files is taking longer than I anticipated, but I still hope to have the new location site fully operational by end of summer.
The other day I received email indicating there seemed to be a problem with sites on space I rent from Bizland. I phoned Bizland to see what was the issue. At first they told me that I had too many files in one of the directories named integrity. I found that strange because I had't uploded anything to that particular directory in over two years. I was told I had to delete some of the files.
I had a look at the integrity directory, deleted the files and even deleted the entire directory. The problem did not go away so I made another phone call. This time they told me I had too many files (over 40,000) in the root directory. I asked how much webspace I had available. I had lots so that was not an issue. It was explained the having too many files in one directory slows down operating systems so I asked how many file I could have in any one directory and I was told that a maximum of 20,000 file was allowed, but a number closer to 10,000 is preferred.
Last night I started deleting Catocala files from the root directory and will upload them to a new URL at http://www.silkmoths.bizland.com/Catocala/catocala.htm
I will have to change many links on many files to accomodate the new address in a Catocla directory.
This morning and this afternoon I have been deleting many files from the Sphingidae of the Americas website and will be relocating them in a new Sphinx directory which you wil be able to access with links at http://www.silkmoths.bizland.com/Sphinx/usatable.htm
Both of the new directories wil have less than 10,000 files, but that leaves over 20,000 files covering Saturniidae so as soon as I have all the Sphingidae files moved, I will begin movng the files covernig the African Saturniidae to a new directory called Africansats
Bizland will not allow access to the sites until all the moves are completed, and that may not be until next week some time because I have to do quite a bit of sleeving tomorrow and Friday before I head out to Malay Falls, Nova Scotia.
Things should all be up and running properly soon enough, but it is a bit of a nuisance to say the least.
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Kelly Price has sent the following image from Panama. We both think it is most likely Lonomia concordia.
Scott Packham recently sent this beautiful image of a hybrid male from a cross between a cecropia female and a euryalus male.
Hybrid male from Hyalophora cecropia female x Hyalophora euryalus male,
courtesy of Scott Packham.
My oldest daughter, Lindsay, has begun marketing ear rings featuring laminated moth wings, mostly of males hatched from my breeding stock or from wild males that have flown in to my caged female Saturniidae or Sphingidae. She is pictured below wearing Hyalophora columbia and Actia luna.
Lindsay Oehlke wearing Hyalophora columbia.
Lindsay Oehlke wearing Actias luna.
Lindsay also has some Costa Rican butterflies on display from the butterfly house at the Prince Edward Island Preserve Company. Wings are carefully separated from deceased specimens, laminated and cut out. Holes are punched-out in appropriate places in the laminating film so the wings are free swinging from their hooks. Single or double wings can be purchased for each ear in a set.
The jewellry is durable, quite eyecatching and has proven very popular at a recent showing in Charlottetown, PEI, Canada. Contact Lindsay directly via Lindsay Oehlke.
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Sphingidae Express
Last month I received some nice Lintneria larvae images from Mexico. Edna Woodward recently alerted me to a request for id help on a Lintneria larva from Costa Rica. I think only Lintneria merops is known from Costa Rica, and, based on Dan Janzen's extensive work, the larvae seem quite variable.
Lintneria merops fifth instar, Heredia, Costa Rica, courtesy of Ismael Chaves Aguilar.
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Catocala Capers
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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 $1.15 (2015 rate) so please use that amount on your envelope with your payment.
If you are in US and order cocoons or pupae from me this fall or winter, you will probably see a New Jersey return address on the shipping box. Do not send payment to the New Jersey address; send it to name and address above please.
This website has been created and is maintained by Bill Oehlke without government or institutional financial assistance. All expenses, ie., text reference support material, webspace rental from Bizland and 1&1, computer repairs/replacements, backups systems, software for image adjustments (Adobe Photoshop; L-View), ftp software, anti-virus protection, scanner, etc. are my own. The one-time-life-time membership fee that is charged at the time of the registration covers most of those expenses.
I very much appreciate all the many images that have been sent to me, or of which I have been granted permission to copy and post from other websites. All images on this site remain the property of respective photographers.
If you would like to contribute to the maintenace of this website by sending a contribution to
Bill Oehlke
Box 476
155 Peardon Road
Montague, Prince Edward Island, C0A1R0
Canada
your donation would be much appreciated and would be used for
1) paying for webspace rental;
2) paying for computer maintenance and software upgrades;
3) purchases of additional text reference material (journals and books) in an effort to stay current with new species;
4) helping to pay my daughter's tuition (She has now completed her B.A. (two years ago) and B. Ed. (spring 2013) and is certified to teach)
and has been working full time as of September with contract until end of first semester in January.
I also hope to expand the North American Catocala site as well as the Sphingidae of the Americas site, to worldwide sites, and that will require additional funds for reference materials, etc. Both of those site are linked from your WLSS homepage.
If you are mailing a check from USA, please use $1.15 postage (2015 rate). Donations can also be made through Paypal via the button below.
Donations are not required to maintain your standing as a WLSS member, nor do they gain you any preferencial treatment with regard to livestock and/or supplies (sleeves), compared to other WLSS members. All WLSS members get first crack at my annual offerings and get an approximate discount of 10% as compared to non-members.
I do usually ask donors if they have any special requests for information on WLSS, and I try to accomodate when appropriate or within my ability to do so.