The first of our 12 black swallowtail (Papilio polyxenes asterius) pupae has eclosed. Well, this is a bit sooner than expected. One of our black swallowtail (Papilio polyxenes asterius) pupae has already eclosed today. Unlike the anise (Papilio zelicaon), the signs were quite obvious many days before it actually happened. First, the pupa got some "burnt" edges, or black dots, speckled across what appeared to be the pupal shell and then the actual internal portion just started getting blacker and blacker. The pharate pupa was crystal clear. The particular pupa that emerged today was quite a large one out the 12 and, as predicted, it was a female. The upper sides of the wings are a musty black color. You could tell that there was some sort of a nasty yellow undertone that it was trying to cover up. Although we don't have any live zelicaon's to do a careful comparison with, it just seems that the wingspan on this one is relatively large for the size of the pupa it came out of. The legs and abdomen also seem rather long and skinny, proportionally. We expected that the vein lines forming the various dots and checkers of zelicaon would be identical on the polyxenes expect, of course, for the colors, but there are definitely some minor differences. For example, the blue parts on the front side is a lot more, the anal eyespot pupils are much smaller, and the abdomen pattern is completely a different thing. And, to throw it out there, the polyxenes doesn't look anywhere close to the model mimicry, Battus philenor, to the human eye when put side by side. It would probably be hard to tell in flight, though. After this female emerged, we got excited about catching some zelicaon to try to attempt hybridizations. We actually caught a wild female zelicaon this morning, but it escaped after we tried to get it to lay eggs in our cage because there was a hole in it. We saw another female and a male in the afternoon in Berkeley, but were unable to catch them with our broken net. Quite sad. For now, we have placed our zelicaon pupae into the incubator to see if they can catch up to some of the later polyxenes, but we will probably still have to keep trying to catch some wild ones if we actually want to get this hybridization thing going. Otherwise, we still intend on creating some pure lines of the polyxenes so that we can also compare the larval stages. ![]() Authors Brian Liang
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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 |