Post by wolf on Aug 18, 2021 10:33:48 GMT
I decided to take a trip up north to Northern Norway this year. I spent 2 weeks up there. I had already made up my mind that i wanted to breed some of the northern species, so i decided to go for Colias hecla ssp. sulitelma, as i considered them maybe one of the easier to breed.
I caught a female the 5. July and she easily laid lots of eggs in captivity on both fresh and dead hostplant. The eggs used about 1 week to hatch. Information online says that this sp hibernates atleast once as larva, sometimes two times. It all depends on the weather conditions up north. The larva feeds on Astragalus alpinus. In my breeding 7 larva went all the way through to adults this year. The rest of the larva is now hibernating as L2 and L3. The adult butterfly usually flies in July, but one source online claims that they can be seen as late as September, which probably implies that they are able to have two generations the same season in the wild. Demonstrated by my breeding this might be the case. Anyway.
The larval stage lasted about 3,5 weeks. I lost track alittle, but im pretty sure they molted only 3 times. They were prepupa for only 2 days, and the pupal stage lasted about a week before hatching.
To my surprise one female hatched as an aberrant, most likely due to temprature changes during the pupal stage. I kept all the pupa in the same room and place, so this was completely unintentional, but a nice surprise anyway!
A not so nice surprise was that out of the 7 pupa, only 2 managed to hatch successfully! 2 adults failed to pump up their wings properly, 2 got stuck inside the pupal shell and one pupa dried out and died. I want to ask someone with more experience. Could this be due to climate differences? Could it be that the larva didn't get enough moisture/water during the larval stage and subsequently they didn't have enough fluids as adults to pump up their wings? Or was it just bad luck?
Im curious to hear your opinions. I dont want the same to happen next year to the larva i have hibernating!
Enjoy the pictures, and as always u can visit my website Norlep.com for highres pics aswell as a few more pictures.
Eggs
L1
L2
L3
L4
Prepupa
Pupa
Adult
I caught a female the 5. July and she easily laid lots of eggs in captivity on both fresh and dead hostplant. The eggs used about 1 week to hatch. Information online says that this sp hibernates atleast once as larva, sometimes two times. It all depends on the weather conditions up north. The larva feeds on Astragalus alpinus. In my breeding 7 larva went all the way through to adults this year. The rest of the larva is now hibernating as L2 and L3. The adult butterfly usually flies in July, but one source online claims that they can be seen as late as September, which probably implies that they are able to have two generations the same season in the wild. Demonstrated by my breeding this might be the case. Anyway.
The larval stage lasted about 3,5 weeks. I lost track alittle, but im pretty sure they molted only 3 times. They were prepupa for only 2 days, and the pupal stage lasted about a week before hatching.
To my surprise one female hatched as an aberrant, most likely due to temprature changes during the pupal stage. I kept all the pupa in the same room and place, so this was completely unintentional, but a nice surprise anyway!
A not so nice surprise was that out of the 7 pupa, only 2 managed to hatch successfully! 2 adults failed to pump up their wings properly, 2 got stuck inside the pupal shell and one pupa dried out and died. I want to ask someone with more experience. Could this be due to climate differences? Could it be that the larva didn't get enough moisture/water during the larval stage and subsequently they didn't have enough fluids as adults to pump up their wings? Or was it just bad luck?
Im curious to hear your opinions. I dont want the same to happen next year to the larva i have hibernating!
Enjoy the pictures, and as always u can visit my website Norlep.com for highres pics aswell as a few more pictures.
Eggs
L1
L2
L3
L4
Prepupa
Pupa
Adult