Beiträge von Gryllotalpoid

The weather is a huge factor of course, but I still think that the weather in central-eastern Europe should be suitable for Cecropia or Polyphemus moths, because the region belongs to the same Köppen climate type as the regions of USA/Canada where these moths occur natively.
More about this: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humid_continental_climate

The Asian Saturniidae species (Samia cynthia, etc.) which were introduced to Europe and successfully established themselves here, all seem to be introduced because large numbers of animals were imported and bred here, with an intent to be used in silk industry.
Of course, some of these moths escaped accidentally, or were deliberately released from breeding facilities.

However, things like these haven't yet seem to have happened in Europe with non-native moths, which are only bred by hobbyist entomologists -- such as Cecropia or Polyphemus.

This seems to indicate that hobbyist breeders haven't yet deliberately released sufficiently large numbers of animals specifically in order to establish a new local population.

But nevertheless, it's still only a speculation of mine, and I don't know for sure that these moths would be able to actually handle the weather conditions and predatory environment of likely suitable locations in Europe.

Maybe some of you have conducted some experiments on these N.American Saturnids, to test how they handle your local weather conditions and maybe even predators (if kept completely unprotected), throughout the year?

For example, maybe somebody has placed some caterpillars on hostplants growing completely outside, and have regularly checked on them throughout the year, observing how they grew, made coccoons, and how the coccoons survived through the winter -- until the moth emerged the following year?

Hello fellow entomologists!

I have this question, and by searching on the English web I couldn't find any information about this, so I thought I'll have to ask about it on these forums.

Do you know of any stable local wild populations of Hyalophora cecropia, or other American saturnids (say, Actias luna), to occur in wild habitats in Europe, be it in Germany or UK, or elsewhere.

I think, as there are so many breeders of these moths in Europe, the moths could have, voluntarily or not, been introduced to wild habitats somewhere -- for example, by releasing a female full of eggs, or by releasing the excess larvae on trees growing outside.

As the climate here is very similar to that of places of North America where these moths occur naturally, the climate shouldn't be an issue.
There's plenty of hostplants for the larvae everywhere, too.

So why I couldn't find any information about wild populations of these moths in Europe?

Maybe most of breeders are aware of the dangers of invasive species, so they are very cautious to not let the moth escape outside?
Though these moths don't seem to be very agressively spreading ones, so they shouldn't cause significant change to native ecosystems.

Maybe here in Europe the predators of these moths are much more severe, so any established populations get eliminated very quickly, by, say, specific birds and bats who attack the large moths and larvae much more than in the America, or maybe the parasitoids in Europe are the main problem.

Or maybe some healthy, stable populations do actually exist in some very localized areas, and those populations are still young, and haven't spread more, due to moths not being far-travellers.

So what are your knowledge on this topic?