|
Post by bobw on Jul 12, 2021 10:53:15 GMT
Congratulations! Another very interesting video, it's great to see these habitats for those of us that are unlikely to ever get there.
Interestingly, in the sequence when you showed the pair in cop, there was a larva sitting on an adjacent twig which looked very much like a Colias, are there species found in the habitat other than the ubiquitous philodice and eurytheme?
|
|
|
Post by bobw on Mar 29, 2021 12:53:21 GMT
Nice video! It's good for those of us who can't get to these places to see the habitats and the bugs. A nice follow-up would be to show the larvae on the foodplant in situ.
|
|
|
Post by bobw on Mar 19, 2021 9:45:54 GMT
They're called carpet beetles because they can happily live their entire lives in carpets, feeding on any detritus that happens to be in the carpet. However, their preferred food is definitely insect collections!
|
|
|
Post by bobw on Feb 4, 2021 18:29:19 GMT
I've also found that specimens are much more likely to spin on black enamelled pins than stainless steel.
|
|
|
Post by bobw on Jan 22, 2021 13:56:03 GMT
...and the Colias is indeed a female interior.
|
|
|
Post by bobw on Jan 22, 2021 9:47:34 GMT
Looks like a male to me, it's got a hairy abdomen and no sphragis.
|
|
|
Post by bobw on Jan 3, 2021 13:41:33 GMT
Are Pemberley still selling them, I could find none in a search of their website? I couldn't find them on the Pemberley website either, maybe they've finally listened to reason. John did tell me that he had to include in the review where to buy the book as it was a requirement of the journal.
|
|
|
Post by bobw on Jan 2, 2021 10:25:58 GMT
JT has just sent me his latest review of a Mark Payne book - a field guide to the butterflies of the Canaries. If anyone wants a copy please PM me.
|
|
|
Post by bobw on Nov 19, 2020 13:31:12 GMT
But some things that start off as natural hybrids then get manufactured because people realise they can make a lot of money out of them, e.g. O. alottei.
The Agrias hybrids, like the Heliconius hybrids, are spectacular, but at the end of the day they are mere artefacts. They certainly shouldn't be named as every one is slightly different, and Agrias already suffers from far too many form names.
|
|
|
Post by bobw on Sept 30, 2020 23:04:41 GMT
If the Colias is from Frobisher Bay, it's probably C. palaeno, but I'd need to see the upperside to be sure.
|
|
|
Post by bobw on Sept 29, 2020 13:08:46 GMT
The Morpho is M. helenor. Difficult to identify the Colias just from the underside but it could be C. alexandra. I'll leave the Delias to those more qualified than me.
|
|
|
Post by bobw on Sept 28, 2020 10:33:47 GMT
Some entomologists explain the scarcity of antiopa in France by the importance of parasitism of caterpillars by Diptera (Tachinidae, Compsilata concinnata) which would affect at least 80% of larvae. That certainly doesn't seem to be the case in the south. As I explained below, I've found it very commonly in the Esterel near St Raphael and collected thousands of large larvae over several years, and I've never had one parasitised, although I have found eggs parasitised by a tiny wasp.
|
|
|
Post by bobw on Sept 26, 2020 17:29:33 GMT
This species holds a special place in the hearts of all Englishmen because of the history of the Camberwell Beauty, or Grand Surprise as it was once known, in this country. It's a rare migrant to this country, usually from Scandinavia, and isn't really a British species, few have seen it here, but from old records it did seem to be more frequent in the 19th century.
I first came across it in the south of France when I was 14. I chased one for about half a mile across several fields before I finally netted it, it was a fairly wretched post-hibernation specimen but it was the only one I saw on that trip and is still probably the most excitement I've felt on catching a butterfly. Many years later I found it commonly in the Esterel, also in the south of France, some years I only found ova or freshly-hatched larvae, other years the larvae were full-grown. I remember once spotting an egg batch on a twig just out of reach so I jumped up to grab the branch, landed on the side of a rock on the way back down and sprained my ankle, it was the end of any collecting on that trip for me but I still had hold of the branch and reared about 100 specimens from the ova. Another year at the same place, virtually every willow tree was covered in big larvae. We spotted a single tree covered in three-quarter-grown larvae in the middle of a lake, the tree had been stripped of all foliage so we paddled out about 30 yards on a lilo and rescued them. We didn't want to have to feed full-grown larvae for days so on our final day we stopped on the way to the airport and cut down a couple of branches covered with larvae. My two colleagues were sitting in the front and back of the car boxing them up while I drove. I could feel larvae crawling all over me until one of them pulled it off to put in a box. I'm sure there must have been a few left in the hire car after we dropped it off. I've also found many larval batches in such far-flung places as Sary Dzhaz in Kyrgyzstan and Windy Pass on the Dempster Highway in Yukon, Canada - of course I always brought a few home to rear.
I must have reared thousands of them over the years. Obviously, the adult is incredibly beautiful, but the larva is quite spectacular, they can grow to about 4 inches and the spines can be very sharp, and quite painful when handling large numbers of them; we used to call them snakes. I've also noticed on several occasions when I've had a plastic box with maybe a few hundred pupae, that one will start to wriggle which sets the whole lot off, they then wriggle in perfect time for up to half an hour, which makes a hell of a racket. Only once did I make the mistake of keeping such a box in my bedroom overnight!
I've also noticed that the species doesn't seem to be prone to parasitisation. I've collected a lot of larvae from the wild and don't remember getting a single parasite. However, the ova do get parasitised, I've collected egg batches from which I've had a handful of larvae hatch but about 100+ tiny parasitic wasps.
|
|
|
Post by bobw on Aug 19, 2020 14:21:25 GMT
I’ve never managed to get a North American oak feeder through but I’ve done it with 10 European or Russian species! That suggests to me that there is a significant difference between European and American oak species, at least at the chemical level. Adam. That's possible. I have got some larvae to a bit more than half-grown so they start off OK. I think possibly I need to start them a bit earlier - just as the buds are bursting. Anyway, I intend to try again next year.
|
|
|
Post by bobw on Aug 19, 2020 12:29:02 GMT
I also managed to find an old photo of what I reared last year. the first 4 columns are European species but the last 4 are obscura, retecta, palaeogama and relicta.
|
|