June, 2003
"Mothly Newsletter"

Hi All,

The African species images sent to me by Theron Morgan-Brown have generated much interest. The tailed species has been confirmed as Antistathmoptera daltonae daltonae, but there is still some question regarding the other specimen. Thierry Bouyer indicates it may be Gonimbrasia (Nudaurelia) myrtea or Gonimbrasia (Nudaurelia) venus or an unnamed species but indicates it is not Gonimbrasia anthinoides, a west African species.

Many thanks to those who helped with identifications.

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Jesse Hoteling at jezzy607@hotmail.com is very interested in obtaining some Automeris io eggs. Send him an email if you can help.

I'm also interested in obtaining some io eggs.

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Carlot Didier has sent me a beautiful picture of Automeris wayampi on display in the Automeris section.

*********KIRBY WOLFE*********

Kirby has recently sent me beautiful images of a female cecropia and fifth instar larva, posted in Kirby's Section. Also additional cecropia images and Leucanella lynx female and larva, South American Andes and Rothschildia erycina nigrescens male and larva, Costa Rica to Ecuador.

*********Bernhard Wenczel**********

Bernhard sent me nice images and information on Leucanella lynx, updated to that species file.

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New member Joel Szymczyk from New Mexico has provided me with nice images of Agapema anona dyari, Automeris io neomexicana, Hemileuca slosseri, etc.. Joel has a very interesting and informative website at http://www.zianet.com/jszym/lepidoptera/lep-pages.html

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Thanks to Russell Witkop for his recent info regarding Hemileuca in Colorado and for his image of Hemileuca annulata larva.

Thanks also to Steven Ife for Hemileuca hera and nuttalli images from British Columbia, and I think he may be in area where Hyalophora kasloensis fly.

***************Coming for Christmas!***************

Christmas of 2003 is a long way off but I have set it as a goal for first release of cd of WLSS. I did a "cd burn" from my home backup files in early March and it turned out beautiful. Images and pages load up instantaneously!

I must respect the promises made to many photographers who have sent me high resolution images; I will only release those images at resolution of 72 as per display on internet site. It is going to take quite a while to resize the many images all into one directory file so that I can do a "burn". I expect the price of the cd will be $15.00 - $25.00 U.S. for members and will only be available to members.

The North American cd is expected to be ready first in late fall.

********COUNTRY BY COUNTRY CHECKLISTS********

I'm now working on South (Peru) and Central American checklists.

********County By County Checklists: United States********

I'm working now on county by county checklists. The membership club has a large number of collectors from across North America who should be able to provide interesting and useful data as to what flies where and when. Please indicate county when sending data.

If you have friends who would like to help, their data is very much welcomed. Vouchered specimens are not necessary.

Lists with county maps are now up for most of the United States; my goal is to have them all up by end of June. Many thanks to those who have sent the requested information.

I'm also getting some interesting sightings from non-members. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Membership access is at

http://www.insectcompany.com/silkmoth/kurthi.htm

No password or login is necessary.

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Thanks again to Clive Pratt of the Insect Company for hosting the site. Clive offers dried specimens of many insects and has an extensive listing of Saturniidae.

********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.

There are approximately thirty members who use AOL for their email. For some reason (I believe) AOL has blocked my messages to AOL subscribers. Attempts by myself and AOL subscribers to get information and a remedy from AOL have been very frustrating. AOL tech reps do not sem to listen to the problem on the phone and email responses are always "stock responses" that usually do not address the actual problem.

If you are an AOL subscriber, I currently have no way to get responses back to you other than to use my school email account. I retire in June so that account will soon no longer be available to me.

If you have at any time in the past been dissatisfied with AOL service, then I recommend you switch to a different service provider when opportunity presents itself.

In the meantime, I will communicate with you using a hotmail account I have set up. AOL users please write to me at oehlkew@hotmail.com

In the meantime, it would be appreciated if you would put some pressure on AOL by contacting your tech rep and presenting the following situation:

Bill Oehlke at oehlkew@islandtelecom.com tries to respond to my email, but his messages do not get through to me as an AOL subscriber. His messages go out as usual and he receives no error message. He is able to communicate with other people (back and forth) through email service provided by all except AOL. He receives my email but I do not receive his email from his home account. He can get back to me through his school email account. It appears that AOL has a block against his outgoing messages to AOL subscribers.

He reports the same situation with at least thirty other AOL subscribers. Please remove the block.

The phone number for AOL Technical Support Dept. is 1-888-346-3704 ( Windows version ) Toll free numbers, 24 hours a day.
1-888-265-8007 ( Macintosh version ).
Your assistance in this matter is greatly appreciated. I have heard real horror stories though with regard to AOL service and will be surprised if you receive anything but stock answers that don't address the problem.

I think that one of their bots interpreted my group mailings of the "Mothly Newsletter" as spam, even though it goes out exclusively to members, and hence the block.

A most recent (June 3, 2003) phone conversation with an AOL tech rep named Alex resulted in this case number being assigned to the problem. If you call AOL (please do) refer to this case number: 107938125

Alex says requests for service must come from AOL subscribers. I am not an AOL subscriber and never will be one!

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