Two Female Smerinthus opthalmica Eclose From Overwintering Pupae

The first two of our Smerinthus opthalmica pupae have eclosed. Stock originated from wild eggs or larvae collected in the San Francisco Bay Area (California), June 2016 and April 2017 that were then either inbred or outbred with local males in summer 2017. 

---

Two female Smerinthus opthalmica eclosed last night from the twenty or so pupae that we received from Albany, California on April 20, although we were unaware of this until this morning.  Both moths are dark gray (although in the images, they appear fairly brown), which is interesting because the very first ophthalmica we found, which eventually became the maternal line for our entire stock, was exceptionally tan. At one point last year, we had made it a goal to create a tan a strain as possible through selective breeding. Several of the maternal parents of the current pupae were tan, but because we have limited control of eclosions times and the wild males we called in tended to be very dark, most of paternal parents were gray (even when acknowledging that it is normal for males to be less tan than females). Of course, it would be impossible to try to trace individual lineages of these pupae right, but hopefully a few tan genes did make it into this sample of pupae even if they are not fully expressed in these two individuals that have already eclosed. Both moths are quite small for females, one being a fair notch smaller than other. This was expected considering that none of the twenty or so pupae are particularly large due to sub-optimal rearing conditions last year and, perhaps, genetics. 

​It is somewhat surprising that these were able to develop and eclose so quickly. The pupae were taken out of the refrigerator on April 28, so it has at most been 13 days since the pupae broke diapause. The species is generally has fast development, and these are small pupae, but this is still down quite a bit from the times we observed last year using incubation at 80 °F/27 °C (~20 days). Also odd is that these first two are females when it should be the smaller males that eclose first. Hopefully, some males do come out in the coming days so that we can obtain some pairings.

---

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.

---