Posts by Susan

if she started laying eggs last night the chance is high she mated. especially if she is just 1 or 2 days old. else she will sit still mostly and still wait for a male untill she runs out of energy and starts laying after 4 -5 days or sometimes longer. i've had with cooler temperatures a female wait for 2 weeks. so that is also an option if you have some out. but no partners. store them cool. they will live longer because they don't use energy by not moving. i thought my pyri were done. all laid eggs and were half winged.. so i put them in a bin in my fridge and after a week i took them out thinking they would be dead. wrong! some woke up again and one even flew still after warming up again.

great scrabble word.. "verpaarungsschwierigkeiten"

a friend gave me a good tip for that. it's so safe you can even spray the branches and caterpillars with it without harm to them. you can get tablets called Milton tabs. they are for disinfecting baby bottles. He send me some from the UK since they are not very common in my country but i am sure amazon or other online sites will send it. just dilute it much. i do a bit of the tablet on 2 liter water

the double cardboard boxes are for the caterpillars. i use these tubes for sending and envelopes. i used german amazon. but if you look for centrifuge vials. or test tubes you might find them cheaper on aliexpress for example. just be prepared to wait a few weeks for them to be delivered lol.

https://www.amazon.de/-/nl/dp/…al+5ml%2Caps%2C67&sr=8-40 tubes

https://www.amazon.de/-/nl/dp/…nvelope%2Caps%2C73&sr=8-5 envelopes

i bought a box of 100 bubble wrap envelopes not only does it conceal everything better because it's squishy but also is good isolation for sending eggs n cooler temps. if you buy a whole box of those envelopes they are not too expensive. same with sending caterpillars. double cardboard. it said it could hold 12 kg ontop without collapsing and again better isolation. i think such things are worth spending some money on for the safety of the caterpillars and eggs.

i still send everything in bubblewrap envelopes and it's fine. i was told by employee about this rule and i said okay there goes my business. and he said but have you been doing this the whole time then? i said yes. for half a year then since they made that rule. he said.. then i would just keep doing it. i think they are letting things go still. recently they improved package send options for us tho in better ways. more options for small boxes and track and trace is 1.20 and no longer 3.5 euro extra.

yes André you are the second one i hear mention tatarica today and its a very pretty shrub for the garden too so i ordered 2 just now lol.. i wont' use them till next year incase they are treated but i love the way it flowers and is better winter resistant then the climbing versions.

So maybe i am jumping for joy a bit early but i have Humaris fuciformis hatching since yesterday and today and they took Lonicera nitida or pileata i am not sure which sp. but i am happy because i was gonna go for snowberry/Symphoricarpos but they nibble on this well too. i have not seen this type mentioned anywhere so far and it is much more common than the climbing honeysuckle. Happy Breeding all.

These are soo cute! Banjo has good stock. i have bought several spiders and other insects from her.

maybe bad water there? i never use osmosis normal tap water does not kill them.

why put em back in the dark they were on the leaves so all is fine. only do that just after hatching if they run around much. but most species do that lots first day and settle at night. were they running around still? :p these are advise things but not to be followed without checking if needed. if they are in pitch dark they might not eat dunno. yeah they do sleep at times. if you see them on the middle of the leaf in a J shape . head curled to 1 side. don't get em off when changing branches. cut the leaf or add the branch to the rest . it has anchored itself to the leaf and is ready to molt you will kind of see it on the front of the head too. a big lump is behind the smaller head. if you remove them from the leaf they will not molt properly and might get stuck with what i call. old skin pants. i make it wet again with a brush and try and peel it off but that only works sometimes. if many have this despite you not moving them. the humidity is too dry.

yes i do that too to prevent the plants from drying or wilting too fast but i am not of the same opinion that caterpillars should not drink. the only reason this is bad is if the ventilation is not enough. the caterpillars almost always drink from the drops. in nature it rains too often or dew forms on the plants. in my opinion i loose a lot less caterpillars when they are ab; le to get a drink esp after hatching. then i just spray in the air and swoop the tiny dust mist up with the bin so they can't drown. but if i do that and the bin is near air tight it goes bad. frass needs to be dry when i clean them. my cecropia had a bad week rain wise last week and still made it fine to L4 so far outside. and it rained a lot. only when we had a cloud break monsoon type of rain i cut the branch and put them on the deck but still outside.

the caterpillars themselves? or the light they can't see much but they do like a sense of day and night. they themselves should be white / gray marbled in this instar. i have such bins as yours for the first 2-3 instars. but i melt a lot of holes all over and especially at the bottom of the bin. (heat a bbq fork or something metal pointy and melt holes in the hard plastic. then it won't split) and in the lid. 2 way airflow prevents stale air. At least they mean air that stands still which is very bad because its the perfect breeding ground for bacteria and fungus.

When they are 3-4 cm or bigger, i would put them in a popup butterfly cage. Someone in europe here sells them but i forgot who. Otherwise alieexpress but that is sometimes a too long wait. leaving the lid off and just cover it with mosquito net and rubberbands (dyi stores have this) or old glass curtain for example should give them enough ventilation.

i have a few bins that i don't have so many holes in because some plants (willow etc) wilt very quickly when the air in your house is too dry. the humidity needs to stay up for the pressure in the plant to stay up. sitting in a glass or jar of water won't matter. (called osmosis)

One more tip. if you cut a lot of food plant keep them in a bucket outside and soak them with water in the evening with the hose or spray bottle. next morning they will be firm and fresh again. or if you can't in a bag with a few drops of water in the fridge does the same. then food stays good for a week or sometimes more depending on the plant. this is how i keep all my caterpillars not just lorquinii.

Daylight is best so if you can't go outside go close to the window a clear day brings out the colors truest. only on 1 picture i could see it's actually green. also phone and pc have crop options so you can close in much better to see details. just some ideas to clear up the pics beautiful beetle i wish those would fly in my garden.

it looks so cute with her fluffy butt and no wings. she will lay her eggs on that rock too. maybe walk a little but not much. she waits for males to come to her.

Hello this is translated from Spanish to English so i hope it makes a bit of sense for you. i have not heard ppl actually keeping weevils before. they might be too difficult because the larvae eat roots of citrus. here the info i found.

Compsus viridivittatus (Coleoptera: Curculionidae) eats from citrus in Colombia. Larvae consume roots and the adults leaves, flowers and fruits. It losses by decreases in leaf area causes greater than 50% in young trees and 20-30% in production trees. To determine feeding and oviposition preferences in commercial varieties, six varieties of citrus were used: valencia orange Citrus sinensis, sweety orange C. sinensis, arrayana mandarin C. reticulata, tahiti lime C. latifolia, bird lime C. aurantiifolia and volkameriana rootstock C. volkameriana. Leaf consumption was evaluated through no-choice and free-choice trials. Oviposition preference was determined through no-choice trials. C. viridivittatus fed on all of the materials evaluated. In free-choice, C. viridivittatus showed preference for valencia orange (644 mm (2)) and lower consumption in mandarin (44 mm (2)). In no choice, no significant differences were detected in the evaluated materials. The greatest oviposition (37 eggs) was observed when C. viridivittatus fed on bird lime, being significantly lower in tahiti lime (9 eggs). The results obtained in this study contribute to the guiding of integrated pest management programs that allow for the reduction of C. viridivittatus populations.

sorry that is still a brown blurry dot. you have to crop the images. or put it on a paper. not even sure it is a beetle at all . the way this looks.

The images are not clear enough to me. try and take a picture without the lid. All i see is a brown blurr.

you can hang almost all cocoons with their 'butts" to a micro fiber cloth. the cloth itself you can hang up any way you like. chrysalis and many pupae have micro hooks at the end and will hang by themselves. No glue or needles needed. :applause: This is a little video of it. credit is not mine of course. but i thought i'd share.

looks so alien .. :o found similar on this site. https://bugguide.net/node/view/750