how do they do it? seeing larvae

[Mark Walker]

Yes, I agree - small trees are key.  I've watched Papilio rutulus oviposit
on small yard trees from the kitchen window of my sisters house.  I've also
_attempted_ the rearing of both Papilio eurymedon and Papilio multicaudata
from eggs and larvae collected from smallish cherry bushes (I qualify the
attempt, as I am a particularly bad parent - especially when it comes to
lepidoptera).  It's possible, for sure, and once you've got a viable
population, you can use the screened approach described by others to
propagate it.

Mark Walker.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Sunsol [mailto:SUNSOL at prodigy.net]
> Sent: Sunday, September 02, 2001 7:44 PM
> To: leps-l at lists.yale.edu
> Subject: Re: how do they do it? seeing larvae
> 
> 
> Liz, maybe short trees would work. :) I have a neighbor with 
> willow out in
> front of her house. She has raised Western Tiger Swallowtails 
> several times.
> I planted a cherry leaved holly years ago. I finally found 
> Pale swallowtail
> eggs last year. This year, I actually saw a female laying 
> eggs and was able
> to collect two. I have a caterpillar on my kitchen window 
> sill right now. It
> seems late in the season. I hope it will develop okay.
> 
> Sally
> Liz Day <beebuzz at kiva.net> wrote in message
> news:4.3.2.7.1.20010902000545.00a9e220 at b.pop.kiva.net...
> > Just returned from a "collecting" trip (really an "oh my, 
> looky at that!")
> > trip, in which I identified some larvae using the 
> Caterpillars of Eastern
> > Forests book.
> >
> > This book makes me wonder:   Just how did the authors, or 
> anyone else,
> > obtain some of these larvae?
> >
> > For instance, I have never seen a Tiger Swallowtail larva, 
> and of most
> > sphinx moths, and have no idea how I could do so (besides buying
> > them).   The female TS won't lay eggs in a paper bag like a 
> moth.  Some
> > butterflies you can follow her and pick up the eggs, but I 
> never see TS
> > engaged in egg-laying,  just flying rapidly along way up in 
> the trees
> > (usually I can't even keep them in view very long).   With 
> cherry and
> other
> > host trees, 99% of the plant is out of reach, so I don't 
> think searching
> > for larvae would work well, unless you could do it from a cherry
> > picker.  So how the heck do people ever see this 
> caterpillar, other than
> by
> > pure chance?
> >
> > Same question, for those kinds of moths that won't lay eggs 
> in a paper
> bag,
> > and whose larvae feed up in trees.    I'm having caterpillar envy!
> >
> > Thanks,
> > Liz Day
> > Indianapolis, Indiana, central USA
> > daylight at kiva.net
> >
> >
> > Larvae seen in Posey Co., extreme SW Indiana:
> > monarch on that vining milkweed
> > silver-spotted skipper (egg, too)
> > viceroy
> > question mark
> > buckeye (chrysalis too)
> > painted lady (??)
> > unknown lycaenid on wingstem attended by ants
> > smeared dagger moth (?) on polygonum
> > Virginia bear arctiid moth (unbelievably abundant)
> > poplar tentmaker prominent moth (defoliating everything in sight)
> > 2 different large twig-mimicking inchworms on sandbar willow
> >
> > At New Harmony, IN, across from the Atheneum, is a field 
> with apple trees
> > and oodles of 6 or 7 kinds of nymphalids feeding on the 
> rotting fruit
> > including tawny emperor.   These butterflies were easy to 
> pick up on your
> > finger. Nearby a garden with balsam is loaded with pipevine 
> swallowtails.
> >
> > At Mt. Vernon, IN, I had a dramatic look at a pink-spotted 
> sphinx moth
> > drinking from evening primrose around midnight after a 
> rain.  Its eyes
> > blazed like neon rubies in my flashlight beam through 20 
> feet of fog and
> > mist.  It flew and hovered with the tongue hanging out like 
> an elephant's
> > trunk.  This tongue must have been 3-4" long; the moth 
> barely needed to
> > approach to reach the masses of flowers, which smelled faintly like
> > honeysuckle.  Amazing.
> >
> >
> > -------------------------------------------------------------
> > Liz Day
> > Indianapolis, Indiana, central USA  (40 N, ~86 W)
> > Home of budgerigar Tweeter and the beautiful pink inchworm 
> (Eupithecia
> > miserulata).
> > USDA zone 5b.  Winters ~20F, summers ~85F.  Formerly 
> temperate deciduous
> > forest.
> > daylight at kiva.net
> > www.kiva.net/~daylight
> > -------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >  ------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> >    For subscription and related information about LEPS-L visit:
> >
> >    http://www.peabody.yale.edu/other/lepsl
> >
> >
> 
> 
> 
>  
>  ------------------------------------------------------------ 
> 
>    For subscription and related information about LEPS-L visit:
> 
>    http://www.peabody.yale.edu/other/lepsl 
>  
> 

 
 ------------------------------------------------------------ 

   For subscription and related information about LEPS-L visit:

   http://www.peabody.yale.edu/other/lepsl