Quick question I want to this but I don't want to kill butterflies or other insects for it. Is it easier to find dead ones in the field where they eat or closer or inside the forest? Because there's a lot in the fields but non in the forest areas. Is it better to look in the early morning or afternoon? Cause it's summer and they basically just recently hatched etc.
@@keysmoths5336 Mostly palamedes, clyton, and any Phoebis. Also the heliconians incarnata, iulia, charothia. Despite the piano yt tag I have an interest in leps lol
Yes. I believe I have a video of when they emerged. I have multiple videos on the rearing process. It was 3 years ago. I tried this year but I had a ridiculously bad time with virus
Eumorpha is my favorite Sphingidae genus!!! Automeris is my favorite Saturniidae genus. There's just something about the sphingids, though. I just love hawkmoths and hornworms!!!
I love how everyone comes to your videos when they find these moths and eggs (that's the reason I'm here lol!). Sadly, the moth I saw laying eggs this morning died, and I found her with a roach chewing her head off :( Such is life I guess! She laid her eggs on the concrete along the bottom of my doorframe so I'm going to pick a few off and see if I can get any new life out of them :)
Nice!!! They die after laying their eggs anyway. Nothing you could have done. I have some videos on taking care of caterpillars if you want to check those out
I'm in Georgia and found something similar but mine has black and white stripes on the under set of wings. The outer wings have very thin brown stripes running the length of the wings. I also found another the same size but more muted brown color. Do you know what they are? Are hey just another variety of the same moth or different. Also how do you tell if one is a male or a female and when does the female lay the pupa?
You can use acetone to remove mould from specimens, even fragile mounted lepidoptera can be soaked in it to remove mould. Game changer for me, I have the memory of a fish and sometimes forget to store vials of specimens properly after a field day only to find mouldy specimens a few days later..
They don't eat spiders. The babies eat the spider when they hatch. Oh, the spider is not dead. It's paralyze but the wasp. So babies can eat the spider while alive
I would have gladly watched you struggle for another 30 minutes lol. I recently mounted some Crambidae moths of the genus pyrausta, so frustrating trying to get that pin in. Congratulations on completing that section. That is a lovely collection you have. Hope to see some videos of you mounting some of those hairstreaks you purchased from ebay.👍
I’d be happy to try and help. If you’re in Florida, they are most likely southern whites. They have migratory tendencies and wind up off shore often. Believe it or not there are many species of butterflies and moths that fly long distances over the ocean
Thanks! I like the # 2 pin for handling specimens. The smaller sizes tend to bend easily which “can” destroy the specimen. I’ll go smaller on the pin but usually for micro type moths.
hello there!! here to ask a small question; yesterday a mama polyphemus showed up at our doorstep and decided to stick around overnight. i gave her an outdoors box full of leaves to stay in since it had began to rain, and let her stay there. this morning she left and left a bunch of eggs!! i see a lot of people say to keep eggs in airtight jars, but im nervous to move the eggs from the cardboard box since they’re fragile as well as wild and i wouldn’t want to disrupt nature any more than i have by keeping mama out of the rain. should i move them, or let them stay put?
Good questions. If you leave them and they are not on a host plant they will starve to death without food. If I were you, I’d cut the cardboard pieces off where the eggs are and put them in a Tupperware container. Put some stems of oak in the container (in a water pic if you can get one). Once the eggs hatch, they’ll crawl onto the oak stems and start eating. Then you can go put the oak stems outside on an oak tree and they will be fine from there
Oh man you're so lucky. One for finding that awesome hairstreak and two for randomly finding someone who was interested in what you were doing. I've only ever had 1 good experience when I was looking for botany bay diamond weevils that I wanted to rear.
Hey David, Old video I know, but how high can you get these traps? I am heading to the tropics in a few months and I'd love to get one up in the canopy somewhere.
Good question. I’ve gotten them up 20-25’ before but they can go higher. It all depends how high (and accurately) you can toss a rock or lead weight attached to the rope from the trap.
@@keysmoths5336oh that is much lower than I was expecting. The rainforest canopy can be above 98'. Far cry from 20-25' That is okay just means it won't be as high as I would have liked. Good to manage expectations though. Thanks
This moth just fell on my lap last night not doing so good and could not fly we got dogs so put it in a safe place but it kept falling so i put it in a plastic container to my shock this morning its alive but are putting eggs in the container what do i do now
Now that is cool!! If you want to raise the caterpillars yourself, I have a series of videos explaining how to take care of them. The Polyphemus moth larvae eat lots of different tree leaves but the easiest is oak. If you don’t want to feed the caterpillars yourself, then wait until they hatch (put oak stems in the container so caterpillars have something you can eat as soon as they hatch from the eggs) then once they’ve hatched take the caterpillars out to an oak tree and release them onto the tree. You can just take the stems of oak that you cut that are in the container and place the stems with the caterpillars onto an oak branch. The caterpillars will crawl onto the live tree on their own and start their lives
Hardly any activity on this side of the pond. It is the middle of winter here. I can't wait for spring. There were some nice moths in that lot, big fan of those carrion beetles too!
I have two hatched on my front porch right now. Two are in cocoons as well. I found them on our Ponderosa Lemon tree, which is pretty ironic how the largest butterfly in North America laid her eggs on the largest lemon tree in the world. I think I’ll name them the “Ponderosa Four”. 🤣🤣 Only problem is, it’s raining right now, so the two hatched are just vibing on the screen of the front porch while waiting for the rain to stop for them to be released into their new environment in my neighborhood, ironically the two that hatched are male and female. They do not mate with each other when it comes to siblings I am aware of that. I knew they cocooned last week and was shocked to find them hatching this morning on my out for work. They hatched faster than my moth did last year!
