Inter-sex Promethea

The photo below is of an adult promethea that emerged in Wisconsin in July 2010.  It has both male &  female elements within it's wings.  More on this specimen & how this can occur, on a post I'll make soon. (Note: This photo was taken by friends of mine, Tsutomu & Masako Nakatsugawa, the day before I deposited it in the New York State Museum in Albany, NY.)  As you can see, the fore-wings are even of slightly different shapes, consistent with the male form on the left and the female form on the right.  Meanwhile, the left hind wing is mainly female and the right, both male & female.

talking with Nancy Collins about raising tree crickets

Nancy told me about her tree cricket rearing as we waited for the beginning of the Annual WI Ent.Soc.meeting in Russel Labs today (Sat.6Nov.2010).  Her Web site is www.oecanthinae.com.  Check it out!

Promethea moth rearing: cocoon care & pairing adults

[See the previous posting on how to find wild cocoons!] Once I collect some wild cocoons, I keep them outside in the garden in a suspended screen "cylinder cage".  (I make a cylinder of screen... dark aluminum screen is great for this... fold the long edge & staple it & then clamp the ends with big paper clamps.)  This way, they are exposed to winter & spring temperatures along with snow & rain, while being protected from birds & mice.  When the adults come out in early summer (~ late June to early July), I can see them in the cage & I'm ready for what's next.

The males & females look very different from each other (this is a great example of sexual dimophism), as you can see in this picture where some representative males are above & some females are below.

To the novice, they look like completely different species, but they're not!  Since these moths are members of the Family Saturniidae, they actually have no functioning mouth-parts as adults & live for 1 purpose: to find a mate & produce another generation.  Adult moths generally emerge from cocoons between maybe 9 am & noon and then expand their wings.  What the males will do is fly off by late morning but the females tend to stay right where they are perched when their wings expand.  The females then "call" the males by releasing an air-borne chemical (a pheromone) which males can detect from several miles away.  What I do with females when they emerge is to place them in separate screen cylinder cages with 1 end open.  They then hang in the cages, extend their abdomen like you can see in the next photo,

and then between ~ 2pm and 6 or 7 pm, males fly in.  When males begin to arrive they often fly in sweeping motions as they appear to being localizing where the female moth is perching.  To see examples of male flight behavior near females in open cages, watch the following videos:


 

More on this, part of the story, soon!

Rearing Promethea moths: cocoon hunting!

One of the easiest & most interesting moths one can rear are promethea moths, Callosamia promethea.  Here in Wisconsin, their cocoons can be found in the winter, if you look on black cherry trees, especially along rural hedgerows.  (Further south, say in southern Indiana, Illinois or Ohio, you might also look on sassafras trees.) My favorite time to go cocoon hunting is along in maybe February or early March.   By that time, most leaves have long since, blown away in the winter winds and taller grasses and brush have been as flattened as they are going to get, from the snow & ice.  That makes seeing cocoons on low-hanging tree branches, all that much easier.  Some thaws have also brought down the snow pack & my longing for signs of spring has become an over-riding pre-occupation.  I look over some maps and chart my course for a drive in the countryside... or just head out, away from town.

What I'm looking for are those magical-looking cocoons, made by caterpillars way back last summer as they spun their silken threads, curling leaves in on themselves.  Those leaves that were green at the time, were attached to their twigs by silk and never fell when the fall and winter winds stripped away the other leaves.  If they are lucky, they also were over-looked by hungry wintering birds and they patiently await for spring and early summer to release the adult moths from within.