To our regular (and new) visitors, you may have noticed that it's been a while since we last posted and it's been a bit patchy these last few years. We apologize for that and thought we'd owe you an explanation.
When we first publicized Liang Insects on June 12, 2016 in our hometown of Albany, we were just sixteen-year olds goofing around. Since we were already taking photographs of our insects on a regular basis, we thought it would be awesome to create a web compilation of them and share our unique experiences as insect hobbyists. There wasn't a whole lot to start with, but our work on the site really took off in our last semester of high school while we experiencing serious senioritis. Still, we never really expected many people to view it, so we kept the main purpose of the site for organizing and recording our work, allowing us to reference past observations should we ever need to. Most of the posts were us casually jotting down random details for our own convenience. Perhaps, in retrospect, much of this may not have been relevant to the average viewer and sometimes (especially in our earlier posts), observations/thoughts were not the most scientific or downright silly and erroneous. Although we've received only praise for our work, I suppose that as high schoolers, we weren't fully aware of the consequences and responsibility of creating a personal website. After we headed off to college in August 2017, we became extremely busy with coursework and student research that we began to update the site less frequently. We also came to recognize in hindsight that most of the work we've produced was quite amateurish and the thought of overhauling the site, let alone updating it, was overwhelming and ended up being demotivating. To date, there remain hundreds of, if not a thousand, posts that could have been written but never were, even though we have been keeping up with the photos and notes in our own personal files. Nonetheless, it seems that Liang Insects has been garnering some decent recognition around the web in recent years, showing up in a variety of image searches. Because we are still just as passionate about insects as we were four years ago, perhaps we will find the time to catch up with the site in the near future. We've matured and learned a heck of lot since then, and it does bother us that this is the main real-life piece of work we have to show for ourselves and it has become so out of date. Note: If you're reading this and thinking this sounds very similar to the "About" page, it's because we've just updated it (as of 7/29/20) based on this post in order to reflect the recent circumstances. Cheers, Brian and Alan
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Rearing notes for eastern tiger swallowtail (Papilio glaucus). Stock originated as F0 ("wild") eggs from Iowa, May (currently in second generation) and July 2019. ![]() August 10
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![]() Brian Liang Brian Liang is a student at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York pursuing an undergraduate degree in entomology. He is co-owner and a main contributor of the Liang Insects blog, insects articles, and site design. Rearing notes for eastern tiger swallowtail (Papilio glaucus). Stock originated as F0 ("wild") eggs from Iowa, May (currently in second generation) and July 2019. ![]() August 6
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![]() Brian Liang Brian Liang is a student at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York pursuing an undergraduate degree in entomology. He is co-owner and a main contributor of the Liang Insects blog, insects articles, and site design. Rearing notes for eastern tiger swallowtail (Papilio glaucus). Stock originated as F0 ("wild") eggs from Iowa, May 2019; currently in second generation. ![]() July 30
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![]() Brian Liang Brian Liang is a student at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York pursuing an undergraduate degree in entomology. He is co-owner and a main contributor of the Liang Insects blog, insects articles, and site design. Rearing notes for eastern tiger swallowtail (Papilio glaucus). Stock originated as F0 ("wild") eggs from Iowa, May 2019; currently in second generation. ![]() July 26
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![]() Brian Liang Brian Liang is a student at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York pursuing an undergraduate degree in entomology. He is co-owner and a main contributor of the Liang Insects blog, insects articles, and site design. Rearing notes for eastern tiger swallowtail (Papilio glaucus). Stock originated as F0 ("wild") eggs from Iowa, May 2019; currently in second generation. ![]() July 20
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![]() Brian Liang Brian Liang is a student at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York pursuing an undergraduate degree in entomology. He is co-owner and a main contributor of the Liang Insects blog, insects articles, and site design. Rearing notes for anise swallowtails (Papilio zelicaon). Stock originated from Albany, California, Summer 2018. ![]() July 18
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![]() Alan Liang Alan Liang is a student at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York pursuing an undergraduate degree in entomology. He is co-owner and a main contributor of the Liang Insects blog and photographs. Rearing notes for the larvae from our hybrid crosses between female anise swallowtails (Papilio zelicaon) (orig. Albany, California) and male black swallowtails (Papilio polyxenes asterius) (orig. Ithaca, New York). ![]() July 16
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![]() Alan Liang Alan Liang is a student at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York pursuing an undergraduate degree in entomology. He is co-owner and a main contributor of the Liang Insects blog and photographs. Rearing notes for eastern tiger swallowtail (Papilio glaucus). Stock originated as F0 ("wild") eggs from Iowa, May 2019; currently in second generation. ![]() July 15
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![]() Brian Liang Brian Liang is a student at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York pursuing an undergraduate degree in entomology. He is co-owner and a main contributor of the Liang Insects blog, insects articles, and site design. Rearing notes for our black swallowtail (Papilio polyxenes asterius) larvae. Stock originated from eggs laid by a wild collected female in Ithaca New York, May 2019. ![]() July 15
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![]() Alan Liang Alan Liang is a student at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York pursuing an undergraduate degree in entomology. He is co-owner and a main contributor of the Liang Insects blog and photographs. |
Timeline 2017–present
Ithaca, New York This timeline is a series of daily posts recording our observations and experiences with various insects (primarily Lepidoptera) around the Cornell University campus in Ithaca, New York, starting from the time we moved here in 2017. As this is a personal blog, we try to keep collections/rearings for university research and course work to a minimum, and mainly focus on just the species we catch and raise for our own fun and interest. Posts prior to this time can be viewed at Timeline 2012-2017: Albany, California, though there is occasionally some crossover when we have returned home during breaks or reared stock derived from home (see Albany, California Updates). Archives (232)
July 2020 (1) August 2019 (2) July 2019 (35) June 2019 (46) May 2019 (20) March 2019 (1) January 2019 (1) November 2018* October 2018* September 2018 (1)* August 2018 (9)* July 2018 (11)* June 2018 (22*) May 2018 (18)* April 2018 (2)* January 2018 (6) December 2017 (5) November 2017 (1) October 2017 (5) September 2017 (26) August 2017 (19) *Currently, a significant portion of 2018 posts are missing. The notes/photos for this time period are saved on our personal files but the posts were never built due to a busy schedule that year. We are still actively building these posts when we have the time. Authors
![]() ![]() Full Species List
(Alphabetical by scientific name) Note: - Not every species we encounter is necessarily presented on this site, rather a selection of those that were of particular interest to us and that we felt were worth documenting. - We can't guarantee that all species have been identified accurately, particularly taxa we are not as familiar with. Lepidoptera Actias luna Agraulis vanillae Allancastria cerisyi Amphion floridensis Ancyloxypha numintor Antheraea polyphemus Battus philenor hirsuta Callosamia promethea Colias eurytheme Citheronia regalis Cupido comyntas Danaus plexippus Darapsa myron Diadema inscriptum Epargyreus clarus Erynnis baptisiae Estigmene acrea Euchaetes egle Eumorpha pandorus Hemaris diffinis Hyalophora cecropia Limenitis archippus Liminitis arthemis arthemis Limenitis arthemis astyanax Manduca sexta Orgyia leucostigma Pachysphinx modesta Paonias myops Papilio cresphontes Papilio eurymedon Papilio glaucus Papilio polyxenes asterius Papilio rutulus Papilio troilus Papilio zelicaon Pyrgus communis Samia ricini Smerinthus ophthalmica Speyeria cybele Sphecodina abbottii Vanessa atalanta Vanessa cardui Vanessa virginiensis Lepidoptera Hybrids Papilio polyxenes asterius × Papilio zelicaon Orthoptera Conocephalus sp. Dissosteira carolina Melanoplus femurrubrum Neoconocephalus ensiger Neoxabea bipunctata Phasmatodea Carausius morosus Diapheromera femorata Mantodea Mantis religiosa Albany, California Updates |