Posts by Bobw

C. cerogama is not easy. I've tried it for 3 years in a row now. 2 years ago I had 7 larvae hatch and lost them all when small and last year all the eggs were infertile. This year I had 100% hatch rate out of about 50 eggs but I only got two through to adults. I fed them on T. platyphyllos and the two adults I got were very small.

Hi Elmar

Thanks for your reply. I had them in a larger cage; maybe I'll try a smaller one next year.

Bob

I tried to rear several species of Catocala from ova this year. I failed with a couple of species but got reasonable numbers through of two oak-feeders: C. sponsa and C. dilecta. I had 24 adults of C. sponsa in a cage and 10 adults of C. dilecta in another but I got no pairings or ova. With this number of adults I would assume that I had both males and females, although I've no idea how to sex them.

I'd like to try some again next year but there's no point if I can't pair them up. Could anybody give me any tips on how to sex them, and more importantly how to get them to pair and lay?

Thanks for any help.

Bob