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Post by garin33 on Aug 22, 2012 13:23:32 GMT -8
Awesome! It's so sweet when you hit it right. Please continue to post pics! Thanks! Garin
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Post by nightwings on Aug 26, 2012 12:16:36 GMT -8
Well, I really enjoyed the reports from SE AZ, and the pictures. My wife and I were there from 19 July until 11 August and collected nearly every other night in Harshaw, Box Canyon, Pena Blanca, and Temporal Gulch, collecting all of the same species mentioned above. I'd love to see the melanistic oculea, Bill, and wonder if you got it at Harshaw? I have gotten some sort of melanistic/ aberrant moth every year for the past four years in Harshaw, including pamina, splendens, oslari, and this year reared a very pale patagoniensis. I know others have gotten identical splendens and near black oslari there also. It did seem like an early season, but some of the saturnids (8 species) were still flying as late as the 11th of August in good numbers. Could you let me know where you collected the raspa and calleta as well because I keep records on callet and cincta? I have never had much luck with raspa, only occasional males at Harshaw. How was Copper Canyon, I thought it had been burned as well last year?
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evra
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Post by evra on Aug 26, 2012 13:20:03 GMT -8
The Saturniid records are all really predictable. I don't think that Saturniids really migrate very much, so you find them around their host plants.
Raspa is locally common. It's hostplant, Acacia angustissima, which is about a knee high, thornless acacia grows in the Harshaw area, but it's a scattered 1 plant here, 1 plant there kind of colony. That's why raspa is kind of rare in Harshaw. But in the Huachucas, especially the south side, there are huge patches of the host and S. raspa is downright abundant.
Calleta's host plant is Ocotillo which grows everywhere on rocky slopes. After using calling females every year at almost random locations, I've come to the conclusion that any of the thousands of hillsides that are covered by Ocotillos south and east of Tucson has at least some Calleta.
Cincta's host is hopbush, which has kind of a confined range to the rocky desert areas of the Atascosas and Baboquivaris. There's a good amount of it growing to the south of Pena Blanca Canyon, which is why there are lots of reports for it from there. Unfortunately you can't drive in to it. If you find a large colony of hopbush cincta can be downright abundant as well.
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Post by nightwings on Aug 27, 2012 18:44:48 GMT -8
Yep, that all matches up with my experiences there, but I have used virgin females for calleta around Harshaw and Box without luck on half a dozen times, but have gotten females at lights at those locations and to females in Patagonia itself, where there is not much ocotillo. I have found calleta cocoons along Ruby Road, CA Gulch, and north of Sierrra Vista, always in association with ocotillo. I just need to get a female to pop when I can try at CA Gulch since I have heard great stories about calling there. I still wonder if the fire effected Copper Canyon last year, though, so I'll try there next year. I'd really like to get a female for my collection and some ova to rear. I went to CA Gulch twice this season and got 40 male cincta and a female one night and not a one another night. I did have a female and perfect weather (with rain in previous 12 hours) the first visit, and no female and a stormy night the next. To my surprise, I did get some cincta at Pena Blanca Canyon when a year ago it looked like toast. Thanks for the feedback.
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Post by mooks666 on Nov 14, 2012 5:32:43 GMT -8
Amazing for you guys must be great seeing so many saturnids lm jealous as living here in the UK is simply dire at the best of times ..
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Post by Chris Grinter on Nov 14, 2012 22:09:29 GMT -8
Wow that shot of ruby road looks so green! Must have been a better year than the last few? I was last in that area in 2011 and it was a cruddy year (almost as bad as 2010!).
Cal Gulch is where I got my only specimen of Morpheis clenchi. There were two that came in that night actually, and the first went to a "trophy" collector who didn't know what he had until I told him. But it was his sheet... at least he gave me the second one.
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evra
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Post by evra on Nov 15, 2012 11:48:14 GMT -8
The western half of SE AZ, from about Sierra Vista to the Baboquivaris, got a lot of rain this year. The Chiricahuas and the rest of the eastern half had a relatively poor monsoon season. I thought that the collecting was pretty good this year, although it was short and came very early because of the moon phase.
I caught a lot of cool stuff in CA Gulch this year, including Morpheis clenchi. I got Triprocis yampai, Alypiodes geronimo, Eumorpha satellitia, Erinnyis crameri, E. obscura, Manduca occulta, Proserpinus terlooii, Euchaetes elegans, Hemioslaria pima, Heminocloa mirabilis and Gloveria howardi down there in the summer. There was also really good collecting in the Huachucas, despite the fire last year.
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Post by papiliotheona on Nov 17, 2012 22:53:44 GMT -8
Yep, that all matches up with my experiences there, but I have used virgin females for calleta around Harshaw and Box without luck on half a dozen times, but have gotten females at lights at those locations and to females in Patagonia itself, where there is not much ocotillo. I have found calleta cocoons along Ruby Road, CA Gulch, and north of Sierrra Vista, always in association with ocotillo. I just need to get a female to pop when I can try at CA Gulch since I have heard great stories about calling there. I still wonder if the fire effected Copper Canyon last year, though, so I'll try there next year. I'd really like to get a female for my collection and some ova to rear. I went to CA Gulch twice this season and got 40 male cincta and a female one night and not a one another night. I did have a female and perfect weather (with rain in previous 12 hours) the first visit, and no female and a stormy night the next. To my surprise, I did get some cincta at Pena Blanca Canyon when a year ago it looked like toast. Thanks for the feedback. As of June 30 of this year, Copper Canyon was about half-burned. It is worth a look for sure but quite a bit of damage was done.
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evra
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Post by evra on Nov 18, 2012 1:21:37 GMT -8
Copper Canyon's burned a couple of times in the last 10 years or so. The most recent fire (Monument Fire in June 2011) burned it, but not badly at all. Enough to clear out the undergrowth, but it spared the big trees. There are all kinds of fresh growth of a couple of key plants: Acacia angustissima and Brickellia californica are taking over the grassland south of the mountains, which are the host plants for Sphingicampa raspa and Dysschema howardi. Both were quite common there this year. Here's a picture of my sheet on 7/12/12, after I had picked off the good stuff. In my opinion, the collecting there this year was far better than it ever was before. Attachments:
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Post by timsbugs on Nov 18, 2012 9:28:27 GMT -8
HOLY SHEET! I'd still be pickin. Thanks for the report, I must visit some time.
Tim
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Post by mooks666 on Jan 7, 2013 7:16:46 GMT -8
Thats some amazing night collecting....jealous...of course... Anyone out there who can supply me with calletta ova this coming year and would ship to the UK ? Have the large mexican race which is twice the size of normal calletta catties were superb one of my fave species l reared mine on privet in my shed in 16c and the temp did not affect there appetite in any way..
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Post by mothman27 on May 17, 2016 15:37:29 GMT -8
Soo amazing! Someday I hope i'll have an opportunity to visit.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on May 17, 2016 17:24:44 GMT -8
Has anybody heard how the season is looking for AZ this year?
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Post by coloradeo on May 18, 2016 19:47:28 GMT -8
Hey Bill -- I was looking at your setup. Did you make the light bar you used with all the 6500k fluorescent bulbs? Wondering if I should add something like that to my MV setup. Can you buy something like you've got there? -- Eric
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on May 18, 2016 20:42:08 GMT -8
Eric, I made mine and don't really know if they're sold like that. Actually, I now use six four foot blacklights ( 3bl and 3 blb). They're fun to make and can be done just the way one wants.
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