Beiträge von Flinter

Hi all,

I think most of what is said here from different angles/viewpoints is right all the same.

If you keep the larvae and their fresh food (watered or not) in an enclosed container and the ambient temperature rises, more water from (of from around) the feed will evaporate and humidity will rise. High humidity (together with high temperatures) will result in faster fungal and bacterial growth. Once one larva is infected with something nasty, disease will rapidly multiply and spread across the container and all will be lost more likely than not.

This might be one of the reasons species like A. atropos tend to migrate to higher latitudes away from the humid, high temperature conditions where they live in our winters...

Good luck with your next try at breeding this beautiful species!

Best regards,
Harmen

Dear Schmetterlingen-enthusiasts,

An update on my ´Gastropacha project´. The larval stages went quite well, I got dozens of pupae.
And now they are starting to hatch by threes or fours every night. Small males appear fastest, but I have a few females as well and observed copulas.
Last night the first new eggs appeared.

Now I am at a loss. It is autumn now and in a few weeks time food will run out. What chances does my F1 have to survive this shortage? How should I proceed? I read that in nature this species winters as small larvae in this part of Europe. But how? In what conditions? Or should I tput the eggs on offer in the forums for hatching somewhere in southern Europe?

Anybody any experience with this or advice for me?

Best regards,
Harmen

To my experience A. atropos pupae are quite robust; although I usually leave them in their underground pupation chamber for at least two weeks and if I have the space for their entire pupa stage. Strong imagos will easily dig themselves out after hatching.

Drying out low temperature (as most sphingids atropos does not appear overly fond of cool storage) may be part of the problem, but with atropos inbreeding is easy and common. After a generation or 4 or 5, next generations start to deteriorate. In my opinion breeders should try to bring in fresh blood as often as practically possible, at least after an F2. Keeping two distinct slightly (2 or 3 generations) inbred lines will do the trick for a while. But after crossbreeding those once or twice provisions should be taken to refresh the gene pool.

I wish you better luck with the next batch!

Best regards,
Flinter

Thank you for your quick and sound advice, Christian!

I have put the larvae (over 100 hatchlings now already, and counting...) in a dark drawer in 5 plastic petri dishes (8cm diameter). I was glad to see a start of minuscule droppings this morning. It seems the larvae are willing to feed on the Salix I put in yesterday. Willow is so abundant here that we feed whole branches of the stuff to the rabbits every few days. I can feed an army on that. If they really tuck in this, food will not become much of a problem.

I read that wild G. quercifolia around this area (actually they are quite rare here...) winter as small larvae. Better hope our Frenchies will not pick up that habit in captivity as well, right?!

Best regards,
Harmen

Dear Schmetterlingen-enthusiasts,

Last week on holiday in de Drome region in southern France my 7yr old girl caught a nice Gastropacha quercifiolia specimen. I believed that after careful examination she had let the creature loose again. But...
while unpacking the car yesterday I found ´Leafy´ dead inside a plastic toy bucket with sieve lid, complete with some tissue paper and wooden sticks. I suppose she is my daughter after all

What was more... there were over 100 eggs spiraled around the thickest sticks. Today 30 of them hatched, to the great delight of my girl. She told her friends in school all about it.

Of course I would much like this breeding to be successfull. But to be honest, I am a bit anxious. I tried breeding G. quercifolia once. All I remember of it was little larvae constantly marching to the lightest spot in the container. Without any feeding. On any food (salix, sorbus, crataegus,...) Until dead. And that was that. Quite frustrating. Probably I did something quite wrong back then.

I would like to do better this time. Who can offer any helpful advice on rearing this species? Any hints that might boost my previous success rate are more than welcome!

Best regards,
Harmen

It appears Armin here was quite right. The caterpillar in my care chose bramble leaves for food. Rubus spp. is stated as one of the major host plants of L. quercus. So this seems to be consistent.

Dear Armin,

I think you may be right. It does resemble L. quercus, which is much more common here. Most pics I found from this species however showed lighter brown haired caterpillars, but colours can vary of course. Furthermore, the larval stage of L. quercus is stated to appear roughly between September and May. This then must be a laggard, since the creature is still crawling around end of June...

I will try to offer some new food and see if it sticks. Until now it did not feed at all on Taraxacum or Hieracium, which makes Lemonia less likely. But since the caterpillar is quite large already, it may have stopped feeding altogether in preparation of pupation.

The funny critter is still very fond of direct, hot sunlight. It actively moves to the brightest spot in its cage. Unlike most othere caterpillars I encountered so far. I get a bit worried it might dry out. But the beast itself does not share those concerns it seems  

I´ll let you know if it takes to eating birch leaves or so...

Best regards,
Harmen

Dear lepidoptera-adepts,

Yesterday a big hairy caterpillar stumbled across me on a hike trough some warm and dry sand dune terrain. The creature looked distinctly Lasiocampidae to my unexperienced eye. But I could not recall having seen this one before. I thought determination would not be hard, since there are only about 15 species of Lasiocampidae around in The Netherlands.

Still I am at a loss. I keep coming out at Lemonia dumi as most probable candidate. But for all the information I can find on that species, it is very rare in The Netherlands (last reported sighting appears to be from 1993) and was never found anywhere near the place I found it. So I believe me determination effort does not arrive at the correct destination.

Perhaps there is a Lasiocampidae-expert among you who can help me out?

I try to include a picture, but I did not have the right equipment lying around, so bear with me on that one...

I hope someone can help me out on this puzzle!

Best regards,
Harmen

Hi all,

In my garden a population of Mint Moths - Pyraustra aurata - seems to be thriving. I have been seing the adult micromoths (3 - 5 at any time I pass) flying around Mentha and Melissa bushes for a few weeks now, sometimes they even appear to be ovipositing on the tips of Melissa stalks. However, when I move in to take a closer look I cannot find any eggs nor larvae anywhere on Melissa or Mentha.

Does anybody here know where I should look to get a closer look at this species?

Thanks in advance for any tips and tricks!

Harmen

Hi all,

The above mentioned female Sphinx ligustri is still much alive. Alas, no mate has emerged yet.

A few days ago she was getting a bit a dehydrated look (less filled up abdomen, measurable weight loss).

That´s when I tried the old atropos force feeding trick with a toothpick and honey water. This way of feeding appears to work pretty well for S. ligustri too!
You have to present the food in a rather large, shallow tray (otherwise you can´t manoeuvre the tip of the tongue into the liquid) and with that you have to watch out the moth doesn´t march right through the sticky moisture. But as soon as the tip of the tongue starts moving, the moth remains immobilised until well fed (few minutes regularly, just as with atropos), beating its wings at a constant frequency. You can leave her on the food like that for a while and do something else in the area (e.g. write this post ), until you hear the frequency of the wing flaps change to something more irregular. Then she´s had enough and preparing for take off, so you´d better get her back into a flight cage.

I´m surprised this practice works so well with this moth, with its totally different tongue than A. atropos, too. Have you ever tried it? Will it keep my moth alive longer?

With A. atropos I have learned not to fuss too much about the water:honey ratio in the food. I started out with exactly 1:1 (volume) with liquid honey, but I found that adding more water made the food easier to take for the A. atropos moths. A surplus of water is defeacated into the cage in the night following the feed (I usely feed a full belly once every three days). The brownish dredge makes the cages a bit grimy, but that easily comes off in the washing (machine) after the breeding season. And the moths live happily ´ever´after.
So I do not know at what honey concentration I feed S. ligustri. I have a shallow bowl of honeywater which I let dry out between feedings. For the next use I simply add some more water (and some honey, if the sugary stickyness appears all gone).

I wonder, if any of you tried this practice with S. ligustri before, what results it will bring in the long run. 4 weeks max, states Rudi above. Lets see if I can postpone my next post until the 12th of April...

Best regards,
Harmen

Thank you both for the quick replies,

From your information I reckon the chances of success are not so good. Even worse since none of the other pupae have hatched yet. I´ve changed my strategy a little bit by keeping the female moth cooler and the pupae a bit warmer. That way I hope to speed up the emergence of new Ligustri moths, while slowing down the ageing of the existing one.
The female moth has been calling every night this week, but has not moved or flown an inch in all that time. So she seems to be conserving her strength...

I´ll keep you posted on the eventual outcome.

Best regards,
Harmen

Hi all,

Yesterday a perfect female Sphinx ligustri emerged from the cool storage. I had not expected it yet and find her fairly early, since it is still freezing here at night. I have some more pupae, which I am trying to force into emergence inside .

The single female has started calling tonight. She has a nice round belly which appears to be quite stuffed with eggs. And I am wondering how I can make her survive long enough to mate her with - hopefully - a male from the rest of the batch.

I have some experience with feeding A. atropos honeywater and keeping them fit for weeks (sometimes months) that way, but after studying the long, thin tongue of S. ligustri I am anxious this trick won´t work for this species.

Any tips or suggestions on keeping this beautiful creature alive and kicking until a mate emerges to make sure of a next generation?

Thanks in advance!

Harmen

Hi all,

Since some time I have been interested in the life and appearance of mole crickets. I would like to know (or try) if it would be possible breeding with them. Unfortunately mole crickets have become quite rare in the wild around where I live. Does anybody have any experience breeding these creatures? And is there perhaps breeding material to be had somewhere?

Any information on the breeding of Gryllotalpa gryllotalpa might be useful.

Best regards,

Harmen

Hi all,

Bear with me.

Last night I was watching my 40 larvae of Saturnia pyri feeding on cherry and ash branches. They all are in stages L3 and L4, with quite some on the their way from the former to the latter. I observed some behavior I find peculiar and therefore wish to share with you all. Perhaps some of you will know what happened or how.

First I noted that most of the immobile larvae in transformation had positioned themselves near the ends of the cherry leafs, of which sometimes only the central stalk remained. Since 40 fast growing larvae tend to feed quicker than I can replenish, most of the other larvae were crawling around on the branches in search for some leftovers.

The funny thing I observed was the position of these leftover leaf areas: they were always directly beneath or around the larvae in transformation. The other, hungry larvae seemed to observe that as well, for many times they crawled all the way to the end of a bare stalk to check the leafy bits at its very end. But... arriving there they stopped and turned around without taking a single bite.

What happened?!

Why should a hungry caterpillar that has just taken all the trouble of crawling to a good spot of food, leave without its price? For refraining from doing harm to its skin shedding sibling? But why would that be? What would be its advantage in that? ´Tit for tat´ cannot be an explanation, I believe. I cannot imagine larvae keeping social tabs on all group members on who did not disturb you and should therefore not be disturbed in turn. Is it the fabled ´altruism´ in play? Caterpillars burning resources, going hungry and diminishing their own chance of survival in order to give their siblings a fair chance as well? I think that is bullocks too. Also because the bigger L4 larvae exhibited the same behavior. And those seem to be in a better position for survival than their siblings that are still on their way to that level. I´d say they should push the laggards from their spot and eat the leaf for themselves.

Still, I observed the same behavior many times, across many different pairs of active and transforming larvae. It appears to be standard procedure (reflex?) under these circumstances.

I actually can imagine the larvae on their way from L3 to L4 scaring off their older and younger siblings somehow. Still, I did not observe any overt behavior in the immobile larvae. I have often observed active larvae competing for the same spot of leaf make body shaking or ´head banging´ movements or mandibel clicking to deter the competition. But not in this case. Larvae that are about to go to the next instar appear to be quite immobile.

I am greatly puzzled by what I saw. Does anybody here have a clue on how and why of this behavior? And does anybody know what would happen in this situation if the larvae are not siblings?

P.S. I have seen this same behavior before in for example slightly overcrowded batches of A. atropos and other species. So it seems to be quite ´conserved´ larval behavior. But the oddity of it never occurred to me until last night.

Hi Silvan,

My guess would be Phlogophora meticulosa.
I´d say: try to rear it and see what it becomes

Best Regards,
Harmen

My guess:

Coccinella sp. (most likely septempunctata?) - Marienkäfer ?

Hi all,

This afternoon my 2yr old proudly presented me with some small caterpillars she had found on a bush of Ribes ova crispa in the garden. Alas for her - and perhaps for the Ribes - I quickly counted 8 pairs of hind legs, which would make it larvae of sawfly (Blattwespen). (Of course I did not tell her that, but was glad she brought these nice caterpillars to my attention and all that...)

Now I am curious if anyone has ever tried breeding these insects (I suppose some people have ). Are they, for example, host plant specific or can they be grown on different plants as well? (I´d rather spare my Ribes) How much different? And/or on cut leaves too? What lifecycle can I expect?

Alas I cannot inlcude a pic of the little culprits here, since my telelens won´t zoom in on the max 15 mm long larvae. The smaller ones are greenish yellow and a bit plump, the bigger ones are green with lots of tiny black spots and black eyes. But I read everywehere that sawflies are terribly complicated to name anyway, so don´t bother too much with determination. We´ll see what it becomes. Hopefully.

Since my daughter still believes her dad can work all kinds of godly magic with all kinds of things including caterpillars and I would rather keep that naievite intact for a little while longer, I have set myself the task of growing her little Tenthredinidae bastards to their surprising adulthood, while sparing my Ribes from devastation in the same time. Anyone any tips on how that can be done? It would earn you the good grace of this godly magician

Best regards,

Harmen