Alas, our final Ceanothus caterpillar passed away today, ending our Ceanothus brood this year that began on 6/10. Here we discuss some of the hardships with this species and future plans regarding the rearing of this species. Today, with disappointment but little surprise, we found the last third instar Ceanothus caterpillar limp on the bottom of the rearing sleeve. It had been feeding yesterday, but it seems there was never any hope left for it from the start and death was to be expected sooner or later. It has been in the third instar ever since the onset of the disease which broke out in 6/28, so clearly there has been something drastically wrong with it as well as the other "growth-less" caterpillars, because it should have molted into fourth instar a month ago. Rearing this species has been very rough over the months, struggling endlessly with the disease that broke out on 6/28 just as they were beginning to molt in third instar. We took painstaking measures in order to save them -- from isolating each caterpillar, to transferring them onto cuttings outside of closed containers, and finally moving them onto a live plant outdoors, but nothing had any affect. One by one, every caterpillar fell dead, most very clearly from disease, while others for no apparent reason. Finally, the last caterpillar dropped (below), marking the end of our Ceanothus brood which began on 6/10 and ended 8/7 (today). Though we had a very rough time with this species this year, we are still considering trying this species again next year if offered again on the Insect Classifieds. If we do, then we will rear them at a lower humidity than we did this year, rearing the first and possibly second instars in petri dishes and transferring them onto the live Ceanothus plant for later instars which should minimize risk for disease. Alternatively, we could try a different host plant such as willow (Salix) which might give different (hopefully better) results. Anyways, we are still hopeful that we will someday rear this species successfully and are not discouraged with our failure this year since according to several hobbyists, the Hyalophoras are very disease prone, often dying out in the third or first instar, and are a hit and miss species to rear even for the experienced. Thus, in retrospect, it was not extremely surprising that we failed to raise them as this was our first time with this species. - Alan
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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 |