The eggs laid by the Eri Silkmoths (Samia ricini) we reared in September-October have begun hatching, beginning our second brood of this species this year. We now face the challenge of finding a suitable host plant during this season to rear them on. After a long fifteen days, eleven of the 200+ unsterilized eggs laid by the second eclosed Eri Silkmoth hatched today. This hatching marks the beginning of our second brood of S. ricini this year and conditions couldn't be less ideal. We have way more eggs than we can possibly handle (~1000), the weather is a bit too cold and humid, and finding enough host plants is a serious challenge. However, we are still going to try our best and pull this brood through the winter so that we can continue this species line. The non-ideal winter weather will cause slower growth, but that's fine as long as they survive. We are mainly concerned with finding host plants, since there have never been local sources of Castor Bean (Ricinis) or Ailanthus (Ailanthus). Further, the commonly used alternative Ligustrum is very limited to us, and Prunus which we used the first time around has almost completely senesced. So, we are completely out of options except experiment with evergreen plants around our neighborhood to see what they we accept. After searching everywhere for evergreen plants that we thought looked reasonably "edible", we transferred the neonate larvae into a petri dish and begin putting in various leaves. First, we stuck in some ornamental rose (Rosa) that is sometimes reported as an accepted alternative, though it is not very abundant since it is a bush, not a tree. Then we added some citrus (Citrus) since some members of other Attacine genera such as Rothschildia, Attacus, and Epiphora will accept related Rutaceae plants, and it is extremely common around here. We also added some ceanothus (Ceanothus) because most members of the Attacine genera Epiphora and Hyalophora accept it. Next was elderberry (Sambucus) for no particular reason except that the leaves still look healthy, and last was an unidentified evergreen Lauraceae tree that is quite common around here that we've been wanting to identify and make use of for quite some time. There were also several other random evergreen plants we could've added such as camellia (Camellia), another unidentified Lauraceae, coast live oak (Quercus), etc., but we thought five hosts was already enough to test for now. Soon after adding new different hosts, we immediately witnessed one of the neonate larva initiate feeding on the unidentified Lauraceae which really took us by surprise, since it was just a random tree that we couldn't even identify. A few minutes later, a different one took a nibble out of the rose which we were hoping for since it has been reported as a suitable host by some. A while later, one of them seemed to be biting at the cut stem end of the ceanothus, though we're not completely sure. Finally, one of them took a pretty large bite out of the citrus which we were quite excited about since this is the one host that is very abundant here and grows in this season. None initiated feeding on the elderberry, though interestingly, several of them have crawled on it and are staying contently. So far, we do not know if any of the larvae that began feeding on one of the hosts will actually continue to feed on it and develop healthily, but at least they started. When more caterpillars hatch tomorrow we will definitely experiment more with host plants and hopefully it will be more clear which hosts they will accept with a larger sample size. - 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 |