One of our ceanothus silkmoth (hyalophora euryalus) eggs has hatched from our batch of 42. These are of northern California origin We weren't really expecting this, but our Hyalophora euryalus eggs began hatching this afternoon, but only one. Today was extremely cold for this time of year here, with much rain and wind. We thought the low temperature would push back the hatch date for these eggs until next week as most of our other species have been growing very slowly. Prepared or not, we were still excited about the hatching as this is such an incredible species. The newborn larva is black with pinkish dorsal thoracic scoli and yellow dorsal abdominal scoli. This is the usual dorsal scoli color scheme of euryalus in the early three instars. These dorsal tubercles are all quite large in relation to the larva's body, especially because of their very long tufts of yellowish pink setae. The lateral sets of scoli are undeveloped and look like small black spots and the spiracles are white circles but very small and hard to see. The head capsule is shiny black. Looking at it up close, the larva actually resembles the mature larva of the species quite a bit due to the scoli, but it has a black body rather than a green one. For food, we went and got some very large leafed cuttings of a ceanothus variety (probably C. griseus) and also a willow leaf to offer the newborn larva. We let it wander on both hosts but it seemed uninterested in feeding on either until dark came, which is typical behavior for most newborn Saturniid larvae. When we checked late in the night, it had crawled onto the ceanothus and looked pretty content so it will probably settle on it. This is exactly what happened last summer when we offered our newborn euryalus both ceanothus and willow as food choices - the larvae all preferred the ceanothus. This seems a little odd as both seem like very commonly utilized hosts in the wild, so willow should definitely work. We'd probably have to take out the ceanothus and only offer the larva willow for it to settle down on it. Willow seems like a nicer quality and more convenient host for rearing these on, but ceanothus should probably do just fine, so we'll just let this larva be for now. We might try to get some larva on willow when more hatch though. ![]() Authors Alan 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)
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![]() ![]() 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 |