Two More Antheraea polyphemus Hand-pairings

After gaining experience from the first hand-pairing yesterday, we managed to obtain two more pairings.

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It looks like we really got the knack now. After obtaining our first successful hand-pairing last night, we tried again with the remaining two males (the smaller one that paired yesterday and the larger one that we failed to pair) and two females (one that we found a few days ago and one that eclosed today) we have. It was 10 or 11 at night when we tried with these, and we were quite doubtful at first because the male that had paired yesterday seemed quite tired after having just done a round, and the other male failed to pair when we tried yesterday. 

We started off with the virgin male and the newly eclosed female, and despite the struggles we had with the male yesterday, they hooked almost instantly this time! All we had to do was gently get them in position and try a few angles, and the male went ahead and the rest by himself. Then we tried with the other male and the older female, and at first we had some difficulty as the male seemed reluctant to pair again after having paired once already, but after a few minutes this pair hooked instantly as well. We placed both pairs in a container in darkness to let them do their business.

A few hours later, the first pairing we obtained split, which is usually not normal as the moths are supposed to stay together until dusk of the next day. Though it is completely possible that the male already ejaculated and the female is gravid (it really only takes a short time), we didn't want to risk it and thus paired them up again. Hopefully both pairs will be successful and the females will lay fertile eggs tomorrow.

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Authors
Alan Liang
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