After all of our Carolina sphinx (Manduca sexta) larvae pupated, we collected pupae mass data. Yesterday, the last of the larvae pupated so we collected all of them in a single container and sexed them. As always with lepidoptera pupae, a simple examination of the sex mark at the ventral rear reliably distinguished the sexes. Typical of Sphingidae pupae, the female pupae's fourth and fifth abdominal segments after the wings are somewhat fused, with a long slit cutting through them, while the male's have clean, well defined fourth and fifth segments with a short slit inside of a circle on the latter segment. After sexing the pupae, we recorded each of their masses. There are 23 in total, 14 female and 9 male. Their masses are as follows: Female - 3.16, 4.02, 4.11, 4.19, 4.27, 4.47, 4.64, 4.81, 4.91, 4.93, 5.04, 5.08, 5.16, 5.60 Male - 3.59, 3.70, 3.73, 3.83, 3.88, 4.03, 4.12, 4.20, 5.12 The the data set is quite small, especially if examining just one sex, we still went ahead and did some basic statistics and generated a histogram stacked by sex. Summary Statistics for Manduca sexta Pupa Mass Mean Std Dev Median Min Max N Male 4.022222222 0.4581969494 3.88 3.59 5.12 9 Female 4.599285714 0.615960342 4.725 3.16 5.6 14 All 4.373478261 0.6192415353 4.2 3.16 5.6 23 Like always, it comes to no surprise that the female pupae are larger than the male pupae. A quick t-test for the difference of means between male and female pupae supported this (t = 2.407, df = 21, p=0.025 ). The histogram appears to be symmetric but bimodal, with males on the left and females on the right. However, one can't help but notice the rather unusual 3.16 g female all the way on the left, far from the other female masses. Though not a outlier by statistical means, it is very strange for a female to be this small and be the minimum of the data set. The variability in the masses is simply very great which we often see with large species such as this one. It could also be possible that the 3.16 female received injuries at some point as a larva, perhaps on the legs, which reduced its size. We never kept record though. ![]() Authors Alan Liang
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Rearing notes for our Carolina sphinx (Manduca sexta) larvae. Stock originated as eggs, June 2017 Rearing Notes 7/27/17-8/6/17: 8/6:
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![]() Authors Alan Liang Rearing notes for our Carolina sphinx (Manduca sexta) larvae. Stock originated as eggs, June 2017 Rearing Notes 7/21/17-7/26/17: 7/26:
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![]() Authors Alan Liang Rearing notes for our Carolina sphinx (Manduca sexta) fifth instar larvae. Stock originated as eggs, June 2017 Rearing Notes 7/13/17-7/20/17: 7/20:
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![]() Authors Alan Liang Rearing notes for our Carolina sphinx (Manduca sexta) fourth instar larvae. Stock originated as eggs, June 2017 Rearing Notes 7/7/17-7/12/17: 7/12:
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![]() Authors Alan Liang Rearing notes for our Carolina sphinx (Manduca sexta) third instar larvae. Stock originated as eggs, June 2017. Rearing Notes 7/3/17-7/6/17: 7/6:
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![]() Authors Alan Liang Rearing notes for our Carolina sphinx (Manduca sexta) second instar larvae. Stock originated as eggs, June 2017. Rearing Notes 6/29/17-7/2/17: 7/2:
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![]() Authors Alan Liang Rearing notes for our Carolina sphinx (Manduca sexta) first instar larvae. Stock originated as eggs, June 2017. Rearing Notes 6/25/17-6/28/17: 6/28:
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6/25: ![]() Authors Alan Liang Our tobacco hornworn (Manduca sexta) eggs have started to hatch. Even in our cool climate, Manduca sexta eggs must hatch incredibly fast. Today, several dozen of them hatched by the end of the day and the rest of the eggs look pale and clear -- just about ready to pop. When the larvae first hatch they are completely white, down to the head capsule, legs, and horn. They tan quite quickly, probably in only about 10 minutes, and the horns become black. They measure a tiny 3.5 mm in length. After they started hatching, we put them in an airtight container with a sprig of tomato (Solanum). Unlike most Saturniids, these things start feeding immediately after putting them on the host. As specialists on herbaceous plants, many of which are cultivated as in the one we used, it is no wonder they are so good at this. It is hard to find a better combination than this for host plant suitability. In fact, they started eating from the center of the leaves; it is much more typical for larvae, especially newborns, to bite from the edges to bypass the leaves' structural defenses such as trichomes. Clearly, they must have very well adapted mandibles for this specific host plant group, which can also explain their small size (larger newborns are usually an adaptation for battling tough host leaves). By the time we put in the newborns that hatched in the evening in, the ones from the morning were already green and noticeably larger. They also should be extremely efficient at converting plant matter to biomass. We expect that they'll be out of here in a few weeks. ![]() Authors Brian Liang Our tobacco hornworm (Manduca sexta) eggs have arrived. Although they are now in mass supply for pet feeder or research purposes and are probably quick on their way to domestication, Manduca sexta is objectively still an interesting species. Certainly no less interesting than many of the Manduca or other Sphingini, a tribe that we still have not reared any representatives of yet. We bought a lot of 50 eggs online, but they clearly were in overstock because we received well over a hundred. We have a few very large, healthy tomato plants (Solanum) but it is quite doubtful that we will be able to sustain so many larvae by the time they grow big. Not to mention, certain people would probably not be happy with the destruction of these plants. . . But I suppose we will deal with that when the time comes. The eggs were in various stages of development when we received them. Presumably, they are a clear blue-green when first laid, but some of ours were already discolored and some had blue dots at the end that is the larvae's heads. These types of Sphingini eggs are known to hatch incredibly fast so its lucky that they survived the trip. Then again, we have consistently observed significantly longer development times in the species we have reared because the summer weather here is dreadfully cold. For how large the caterpillars allegedly grow, the eggs are miniscule. They look smaller than most everything that we have reared. ![]() Authors Brian Liang |
Timeline 2012–2017
Albany, California This timeline is a series of daily posts recording our observations on and experiences with various insects in Albany California and surrounding areas, from 2012-2017. Since we did not publish this site until 2016, posts before that were constructed retroactively. Starting in August 2017, we moved to Ithaca, New York; posts from there on can be viewed at Timeline 2017-present: Ithaca, New York. Archives (1,011)
August 2017 (49) July 2017 (121) June 2017 (79) May 2017 (77) April 2017 (91) March 2017 (35) February 2017 (12) January 2017 (10) December 2016 (12) November 2016 (26) October 2016 (49) September 2016 (84) August 2016 (94) July 2016 (99) June 2016 (53) May 2016 (21) April 2016 (4) January 2016 (1) August 2015 (3) July 2015 (3) June 2015 (2) June 2014 (3) May 2014 (1) April 2014 (3) March 2014 (3) December 2013 (2) November 2013 (2) October 2013 (5) September 2013 (11) August 2013 (15) July 2013 (9) June 2013 (5) May 2013 (4) April 2013 (3) March 2013 (2) February 2013 (3) January 2013 (2) December 2012 (2) November 2012 (1) October 2012 (2) September 2012 (2) August 2012 (5) July 2012 (1) June 2012 (1) 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 Adelpha californica Agraulis vanillae Allancastria cerisyi Antheraea mylitta Antheraea polyphemus Anthocharis sara Argema mimosae Attacus atlas Battus philenor hirsuta Bombyx mori Caligo atreus Callosamia promethea Coenonympha tullia california Citheronia regalis Cricula trifenestrata Danaus plexippus Eacles imperialis Erynnis tristis Estigmene acrea Eumorpha achemon Eupackardia calleta Furcula cinereoides Heliconius erato Heliconius hecale Heliconius sapho Heliconius sara Hyalophora cecropia Hyalophora columbia Hyalophora euryalus Hylephila phyleus Hyles lineata Junonia coenia Langia zenzeroides formosana Lophocampa maculata Manduca sexta Morpho peleides Nymphalis antiopa Orgyia vetusta Orthosia hibisci quenquefasciata Pachysphinx modesta Papilio cresphontes Papilio eurymedon Papilio glaucus Papilio machaon oregonius Papilio multicaudata Papilio polyxenes asterius Papilio rumiko Papilio rutulus Papilio zelicaon Phyciodes mylitta Phyciodes pulchella Pieris rapae Plejebus acmon Poanes melane Polites sabuleti Polygonia satyrus Pyrgus communis Rothschildia jacobaeae Samia cynthia advena Samia ricini Smerinthus cerisyi Smerinthus ophthalmica Strymon melinus Trichoplusia ni Uresephita reversalis Vanessa annabella Vanessa atalanta Vanessa cardui Unidentified Lepidoptera Hybrids Papilio glaucus × Papilio rutulus Papilio polyxenes asterius × Papilio zelicaon Orthoptera Melanoplus devastator Phaneroptera nana Pristoceuthophilus pacificus Scudderia mexicana Trimerotropis pallidipennis Phasmatodea Carausius morosus Phyllium giganteum Mantodea Mantis religiosa Phyllocrania paradoxa Hymenoptera Apis mellifera Bombus vosnesenskii Brachymeria ovata Linepithema humile Pediobius sp. Polistes dominula Xylocopa varipuncta Unidentified Diptera Lucilia sericata Unidentified Hemiptera Brochymena sp. Leptoglossus sp. Nezara viridula Odonata Argia vivida Libellula croceipennis Coleoptera Coccinella septempunctata Cycloneda polita Diabrotica undecimpunctata Hippodamia convergens Araneae (Class: Arachnida) Araneus diadematus Phidippus johnsoni |