Antheraea mylitta on sweetgum, courtesy of Bruce Passarelli
Antheraea mylitta on sweetgum, courtesy of Bruce Passarelli
Hi All,
I started to harvest polyphemus cocoons (about 150) around August 7-10, and also brought in (about 85) fresh luna cocoons on August 12. Pachysphinx modesta have all pupated (early August), rosy maples are starting to pupate (August 12-ongoing), and it looks like Sphinx poecila are just about ready to leave blueberry foliage (August 16). I have additional luna, polyphemus, cecropia and columbia broods still feeding.
As of August 24, I have harvested about 300 luna cocoons, 170 polyphemus, 80 rosy maple pupae, 20 columbia with cecropia just starting to spin. I also have some pachysphinx modesta and some Sphinx poecila pupae.
Just prior to arrival of Hurricane Earl, I brought in most of my sleeves and consolidated remaining feeding larvae in just a few sleeves in lower, sheltered areas in the woods. With this harvest I have about 400 of each luna and polyphemus, and much smaller numbers of cecropia and columbia.
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I have recently received a shipment of dead Saturniidae specimens from central and southwestern Cameroon. They appear to be in A- or better condition in
most instances. I have begun to scan the specimens and identify them and am posting them to
Cameroon Saturniidae.
So far I have scanned about half of the items in the package. I hope to have the other half scanned and posted by Tuesday.
It is my first hope to be able to sell this entire set as a single package and am only looking to cover my expenses
of postage from Cameroon $15.00; $2.50 US/item; the cost to send a payment by Western Union to source in Cameroon, probably about $15.00 to $20.00
(I should know by Monday) and $0.75 mark up per item for scanning, identifying and repacking time.
I think there will probably be specimens of 23 different Saturniidae species (37 specimens in all) in this excellent starter collection from Cameroon.
If you spread them and send me digital images and wingspans, I will confirm ids or id the ones that have so far only been done to genus level.
I should have a total price for this package by Tuesday when I hope to have them all displayed and the Western Union payment completed.
If I do not have a request from membership for entire package, I will begin to advertise them on several sites to non-members.
If you are not interested in purchasing the entire package, but would like individual specimens or smaller groups of specimens, let me know the species of
interest, and I may break up the set or just bring in the items of demand in future imports.
The following species are anticipated for sale in USA or overseas only. I have already sent pricelist to Canadian WLSS members and am beginning to process their orders from here:
Actias luna at $4.35 US/cocoon
Antheraea polyphemus as $4.75
Automeris io at $4.35
Callosamia angulifera at $6.40/cocoon
Callosamia promethea at $4.35/cocoon
Callosamia securifera at $7.20/cocoon, only slight possiblity on these
Citheronia regalis at $16.00/pair, probably with some extra males from different location available at $7.00/male
Citheronia splendens sinaloensis at $16.00/pair, probably with some extra males available at $7.00/male
Citheronia sepulcralis at $16.00/pair; only slight possiblity these will be available.
Dryocampa rubicunda at $2.50/pupa
Eacles imperialis at $16.00/pair
Hyalophora cecropia at $6.40/cocoon
Hyalophora columbia at $6.40/cocoon
Hyalophora euryalus at $7.20/cocoon
Samia cynthia at $4.35/cocoon
The following butterfly pupae are expected:
Papilio polyxenes asterius (black swallowtail) at $4.50/pupa
Pterourus glaucus (eastern tiger swallowtail) at $4.25/pupa
Pterourus troilus (spicebush swallowtail) at $4.25/pupa
Eurytides marcellus (zebra swallowtail) at $4.50/pupa
Heraclides cresphontes (giant swallowtail) at $5.50/pupa
I am requesting that you send me your wish list by email by September 20, 2010 with species and quantities desired, even for North American species
that are not yet listed. Please in that email send your complete shipping address.
Do not send money at this time. Do not send money until your shipment/order has been confirmed. I may have to
ration out some species that will likely be in short supply.
Please note: I reside in Canada at the following address and payment must be sent to me only at this address:
Bill Oehlke
Postage from USA to Canada is $0.75 so please use that amount on your envelope with your payment.
This will not likely be the address that will be on the box of cocoons/pupae which you receive. I, myself, will be shipping some cocoons from New Jersey
in mid to late October.
Do not send payment to that address. One US shipping partner will be shipping cocoons from New Hampshire. Do not send payment to that address. Send payments exclusively to
name and address above.
Please also note: I prefer to receive payment by personal check in US funds. I have a US account here at my local bank. When I receive funds in US dollars
I can deposit those checks directly into my US account and do not lose any funds for currency conversions. I can then use those funds, again without
having to pay the bank any currency conversion fees, to pay the many US suppliers for the cocoons they have sent to me in New Jersey or to my shipping
partner in New hampshire.
I can also accept International bank or postal money orders, but those must be International money orders in US funds.
Please do not send payment in the form of US money orders as they are cashable only in US, and I am in Canada.
I can accept payment in US dollars via Paypal, but there is approximate 4% Paypal transaction fee that I would tack onto your invoice as that is
what Paypal charges me. Paypal also directly deposits only into my Canadian account. They convert the money into Canadian dollars. In order to pay my sources in US,
I have to reconvert those Canadian dollars back into US dollars and the bank always charges a fee for that, usually from 3-4% on the exchange rate.
I would also tack that onto your invoice if you wish to pay by Paypal. Once again I prefer to receive payments by personal check. Please make sure you
have sufficient funds in your account to cover your payment.
For overseas customers, I will accept Paypal payent in US funds or direct bank transfers, or personal checks in US dollars, drawn on a US bank. I have also accepted US banknotes in
registered letters.
155 Peardon Road
Montague, Prince Edward Island, C0A 1R0
Canada
I will certainly still accept orders from members after September 20, but there are several species which will likely be all sold out by end of September. I am also revising my policy with regard to payments. Payment must be made in full as specified above, before cocoons get shipped.
I am very interested in purchasing your excess stock (US breeders and Canadian breeders), especially of the less commonly offered species. Please let me know what you might have available for bulk purchases at wholesale prices. US stock can be bulk shipped to US address which I will provide. Do not ship from USA to my Canadian address
If you have a specific interest in Sphingidae, let me know; there are some species that I can probably access.
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Bruce Passarelli writes, "The Antheraea mylitta are doing best on Sweetgum. (figured, if they did well for Alan Marson on Gunni, the sweet gum should be good). The cats are half the size on White Birch and Oak. I am switching some over to Sweetgum for fear of time and leaves turning. So far so good."
Antheraea mylitta on sweetgum, courtesy of Bruce Passarelli
Antheraea mylitta on sweetgum, courtesy of Bruce Passarelli
I am getting caught up with postings of hybrids sent to me by Robert Vuattoux:
Opodiphthera helena male x Opodiphthera eucalypti female, fifth instar larva; Robert Vuattoux.
Saturnia (Saturnia) pavonia male x Saturnia (Eriogyna) pyretorum female, cocoons.
Unusual pairing: Opodiphthera eucalypti male pairing with Saturnia pyri female
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I have begun to create thumbnail pictoral checklists for all Canadian provinces and hope to have them all completed and posted by end of September. I am very interested in receiving data and images for any Canadian sightings to add to the data base.
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Antheraea mylitta melanic ?? female, India, courtesy of Lorenzo Comoglio.
"In the second photo (below), you can see this aberrant female with a quite "normal" female. If you compare the second female I cited with the female in this Mike Jordan photo you can see the difference. I think both are aberrant."
I (Bill Oehlke) do not have enoough experience with this species to know what falls within the "normal" range of colour patterns for Antheraea mylitta. I do know that frequently ground colour can vary tremendously within many of the Antheraea species. The images of the females submitted by Jean-Yves Malmasson show considerable dark scaling in the outer half of the median area. Additional information would be appreciated.
Antheraea mylitta melanic ?? female, India, courtesy of Lorenzo Comoglio.
Rodolphe Rougerie who has been doing extensive DNA barcoding at University of Guelph sends the following message:
"Some of you already know that I will be leaving my current position at the Biodiversity Institute of Ontario for a new postdoctoral position at the
University of Rouen in France. My departure will be effective on August 24th. There is no plan to replace me here at the moment. Of course, you can keep
sending samples for DNA barcoding, but my departure will have some consequences on the workflow for the samples you want to submit. I will try to clearly
present the new procedure below.
"My new position in France will be very much oriented toward DNA barcoding of Lepidoptera and I will keep very close contacts with the colleagues in
Guelph. I will still push forward the efforts for Lepidoptera in general and for some specific campaigns and projects already running. So I obviously
encourage you to keep pulling up legs and send samples to Guelph for barcoding, and I hope that the outstanding current achievement - half a million
lepidoptera records on BOLD now - will keep going steadily and even further develop.
"You can keep using my Rodolphe email address for now - it will keep working for one more year, and in any case
I will let you know when a new one will be available.
"From now on, please use the following procedure when submitting samples:
- send the plates/boxes to:
Sample Submission
- send the data (specimendata + platerecord + imagedata + image files) on a DVD along with the boxes or plates;
- make sure that you indicate, on a brief letter accompanying the parcel:
- (optional) send me an email with the list of plates (CCDB####) you have sent to BIO - I keep a log of all of your plates and track their progress; this
can be useful to detect some slow progress and then flag issues which have not been reported to anybody in the lab and caused the plate to be stuck in
the process.
"I attach to this message the microplate instructions usually sent with plates/boxes - I recommend you take time to
read them
again and that you try to follow them closely. You will see that email addresses are given to send the data, but I highly recommend that you follow the
instructions above instead since you do
not have any point of contact in BIO anymore, and sending the data and material separately may cause unnecessary trouble to re-associate them.
"Also attached are tube rack instructions.
"When your samples will be received, colleagues in the BOLD team will first work on creating the records in your projects; if they find errors or
inconsistencies in your data submission file, they will contact you - so be ready to receive requests from the BOLD team. Once records are on BOLD,
images will be added, and the samples will be submitted to the lab by the COLLECTION team, using the plate_record file you sent - in case there is any
issue with that file (typos or entries not found on BOLD, it happens), you will be contacted by these persons.
"Once these steps are done, you only have to relax and wait for your sequences :-) Currently the delay for 1st pass PCR is 2 to 4 weeks on average after
the records have been created on BOLD, and failure tracking is quite slow unfortunately. It usually takes month, but I'll keep pushing for these most
important records that are urgently needed (just let me know).
"The LAB team won't be able to contact all of you when results are generated, for data validation, etc.. This is why it is important that you mention that
I am the "point of contact" for your samples when you send a plate, so that I keep receiving alerts when your sequences are generated and then I can get in
touch with you if only to let you know that sequences have been added on BOLD.
Also, the second PCR step, failure tracking - for these samples who failed on first pass - will only be initiated after an explicit request that I usually
send once the results of 1st pass have been controlled. Editing of failure tracked sequences also usually takes a very long time unless I do it myself or
send a special request for technicians to edit the traces.
"Later on, when you want to update data, please use the procedure consisting in downloading the data spreadsheet from BOLD for the records you want to
change, and submit the edited file to submissions@boldsystems.org, mentioning the kind of data update it is (taxonomy, collection data, etc...).
If you want to delete sequences that you have identified as contaminants, please use the "clear sequence" button of the sequence page for an individual
record, or send a list of sampleID to support@boldsystems.org
Basically, you can send any technical question relative to your records, images, data, etc. to the support@boldsystems.org email address. Feel free to cc
me (or not) when you send this kind of request if you believe my input may help in the discussion at some point.
"I am very grateful to you all for the time and energy you already have invested in DNA barcoding projects, and I sincerely appreciate all the efforts you
are doing for that.
I hope the transition will go smoothly and in any case do not hesitate to contact me, or to ask some specific questions to colleagues in Guelph.
"Thank you for having read that email so far,
"With my best regards,
"PS: Je m'excuse auprès de mes collègues francophones pour ce très long message en anglais... je n'ai pas le temps et l'énergie de le traduire en français,
mais si certains points ne sont pas clairs n'hésitez pas à me contacter. Aussi, nous aurons sans doute très bientôt l'occasion de se voir ou de discuter au
téléphone, ce qui va grandement faciliter les discussions :-)
R"odolphe Rougerie, PhD
University of Guelph
Biodiversity Institute of Ontario
50 Stone Road East
Guelph, Ontario, Canada N1G 2W1
(1) your name and contact information, including email address;
(2) the BOLD project code (you can create a project yourself on BOLD, or if necessary just send me a short email and I'll create the project for you);
(3) my name as the point of contact for the DNA barcoding Lepidoptera campaign (if you send other insects and have no other contact in BIO, please
contact me before).
"Rodolphe
Canadian Centre for DNA Barcoding
Biodiversity Institute of Ontario
50 Stone Road East
Guelph, Ontario
N1G 2W1 Canada
Tel. 1-519-824-4120 ext 53800
"Email: Rodolphe
Personal Webpage: http://www.uoguelph.ca/~rrougeri/
The Barcode of Life Database (BoLD): http://www.boldsystems.org
All-Leps Barcode of life: http://www.lepbarcoding.org/"
On August 22, 2010, Ryan St. Laurent writes, "I make trips to southern PA each August to visit family. I usually find some saturniids while visiting, and today I came across two that interested me. You may remember that I found a regalis larva on black walnut a couple summers ago. Well, just today (22nd) I found an early final instar regalis on a black walnut very near where I found the other one. I attached a couple pictures I took. I also saw an early 4th instar imperialis in a silver maple tree (too high up to photograph well). You already have a record for regalis in Franklin Co., PA, from me, but I figured it's worth mentioning, especially now that I have a picture. You do not, on the other hand, have any records for imperialis for Franklin Co.
"I also have pictures of pine devils I reared this season. If you'd like any pictures of any instars/pupae or a series let me know and I can send you plenty. Speaking of pine devils, have you had any luck finding anyone that might have some pupae available? I've been searching quite a lot down here in southern PA/northern MD for pine devils to no avail. Do you ever get sightings of this species from anywhere farther north than Virginia? I might head over to West Virginia to do some searching in a day or two. Any detailed records (especially foodplant preferences) would be great as I have really only been checking white pine branches and surrounding forest floor for prepupals.
"Thanks, and I hope the new record well help."
Citheronia regalis early fifth instar, Franklin County, Pennsylvania,
August 22, 2010, courtesy of Ryan St. Laurent.
Ryan takes great photos. I am always interested in displaying high quality photos (any Saturniidae species, even most common ones) of any stages. Please send them along with data. I often get swamped with id requests and photo submissions in the summer, so I might not get to them right away, but I will, over time, make a good effort to get them posted.
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Lorenzo Comoglio of Italy sends images of hatchlings, fourth and fifth instar larvae of Gonimbrasia osiris from the Dodomo Region of Tanzania. He reporst success with them on Quercus robur.
Gonimbrasia osiris fifth instar, Mount Kaguru, Dodomo Region, Tanzania,
on Quercus robur, courtesy of Lorenzo Comoglio.
Yves-Pascal Dion has sent the following notices concerning the Montreal Insect Show:
Boutique et Musée:
Passion Papillons, 996 Boul. du Lac, Charlesbourg, QC, G2M 0C9, Canada
Adresse Postale:
Insectes Mondiaux, C.P. 1018, Lac-Beauport, QC, G3B 2J8, Canada
Téléphone: 418-907-7367
Sphingidae Express
I am very much interested in receiving and displaying images of Sphingidae adults, eggs, larvae and pupae, even of the common species.
Please always send data to include date and location, at least to county level.
I wouold very much like to continue creation of County/Province level checklists for USA and Canada, and am also very interested in refining checklists for Central and South America.
Many Sphingidae sightings and images have arrived over last couple of weeks and it has been hard to keep up with posting of images and creation of new thumbnail checklists.
I was very pleased to receive and post an image of a live Sagenosema elsa from White Mountain Lake, Navajo County, Arizona, courtesy of Alex Jones. It is first time I have an image of a live moth of this species on Sphingidae of Americas website.
Slides have now been scanned and images have been posted. I continue to work on the county by county thumbnail checklists.
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Arctiidae Art
Kirby Wolfe indicates he will be sending me many electronic images of Arctiidae from Costa Rica. I will shortly begin construction of a worldwide Arctiidae site. Those who wish to contribute images of adults and/or larvae or any other stages are welcome to do so. All images that I use remain the property of respective photographers.
I am working on creating the text files and orgainizing names at this stage. It will probably be after Christmas that I do first posting.
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Catocala Capers
I am starting to get Catocala images and data from several locations.
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