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Post by mswisher on Aug 8, 2018 21:43:39 GMT -8
This was my fourth year in a row collecting in SE AZ and I had the best year yet. I did 5 nights 26-30 July (Box Canyon, Harshaw, Pena Blanca Canyon, California Gulch, and Copper Canyon). I also had a blacklight trap set up each night at the house I stayed at in Sonoita. A general observation is that the Saturniids were more plentiful than in past years (especially A. oculea - in past years I have seen maybe 1 or 2 a night, but this year each location had over a dozen) but the Sphingids were much less plentiful. Numbers on E. typhon, M. rustica and many others seemed way down, although there were a few individuals of just about all of the common species at each location. Maybe the full moon reduced the volume of Sphingids, although it was hidden by cloud cover most nights. Overall, I got two new Saturniids (female A. oslari from Copper Canyon and both male and female R. cincta from California Gulch) and three new Sphingids (C. sonorensis and S. asellus at Pena Blanca and M. occulta at California Gulch). I also collected my first female specimens of A. oculea, A. iris hesselorum, and S. raspa. E. calleta has continued to elude me, however. Also had a chance to collect several viable looking cocoons of A. anona along Proctor Road in Madera Canyon. I have to thank my friend Bruce Griffin who joined me each night, sharing his vast knowledge of western moths, especially Saturniids.
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Post by joee30 on Sept 3, 2018 14:28:16 GMT -8
I will try and make it down there next year for the mothing, and maybe beetles as well. I have done some collecting this year, but due to knee issues, been staying in and taking it easy. Tried doing some rearing, but it was good with some species, and aweful with others(Automeris AZ species, Hyalophora in general, and a bunch of cooked ova). The ones I did well on were A. polyphemus, Automeris io, Citheronia regalis, and have some third instar A. oculea going. Will try again next year for Hyalophora, local and cecropia.
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Post by coloradeo on Sept 5, 2018 18:05:09 GMT -8
Matt, how did you do at the house with the blacklight (bucket?) trap?
Enjoyed collecting with you in AZ a few years back. Glad you've made it down consistently. I'd sure like to hit next year too... we'll see.
Thanks all for this thread.
Eric
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Post by exoticimports on Sept 6, 2018 4:12:27 GMT -8
Matt, how did you do at the house with the blacklight (bucket?) trap? Enjoyed collecting with you in AZ a few years back. Glad you've made it down consistently. I'd sure like to hit next year too... we'll see. Thanks all for this thread. Eric Yeah, me too. Said I was going back "next year" every year since 2002. Chuck
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Post by mswisher on Sept 6, 2018 8:01:55 GMT -8
Matt, how did you do at the house with the blacklight (bucket?) trap? Enjoyed collecting with you in AZ a few years back. Glad you've made it down consistently. I'd sure like to hit next year too... we'll see. Thanks all for this thread. Eric Surprisingly well, since Sonoita is primarily a grassland environment, although there was a smattering of oaks and mesquites around the property. My bucket had about two inches deep of moths each morning and took me at least an hour to sort each time. Lots of smaller stuff, but also got a few individuals of larger sphingids (E. ello, M. sexta, M. quinquemaculatus) and saturniids (A. oslari, A. patagoniensis, S. montana). Also had lots of A. oculea hanging around the bucket. Sonoita was a great staging area, with easy access to Harshaw, Box Canyon, and the Huachucas. The house was great as it had about 10 acres of land to set out various traps and chase butterflies during the day. If anyone is interested in joining next year, let me know. .
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Post by nightwings on Sept 6, 2018 15:27:34 GMT -8
Keeping things rolling, I finally have a little to report. I had one last E. calleta male emerge the night of August 28-29 from last years brood. I also have calleta going on privet )the larger "wax- leaf" variety, ash, and ocotillo. The race to finish first was won by the ocotillo feeders. I only had half a dozen on ash (not sure which species), and only one has spun up by now with all but one of 18 on ocotillo. There are still a dozen or less on privet going but most have been finished for a week or so. Only one lost to disease. Oculea larvae are on a domestic live oak and in fourth instar mainly. A few days ago I awoke to find three rearing "cages/totes" with larvae demonstrating the so-called "blagck plague", drooling large amounts of dark brownish liquid. assuming they were goners, I tossed food containers (recycled plastic soup containers), food and larvae of any showing the symptoms. I isolated a few from the effected crates with fresh containers of food to observe. After thinking about it a while, I remembered an experience I had with my first brood of polyphemus, back when I was in high school (about 50 years ago). I was faced with similar symptoms but though I might have had contaminated post oak and began to replace all with freshly washed material. The symptoms disappeared. and all pupated successfully. I had gathered plant material from a different group of trees right before the event, so that is one variable to suspect. Possibly, that change may have introduced some toxic material or contamination from other larvae (bagworms) that I discovered on the trees. The only other possible environmental issue could have been from an extremely heavy monsoon storm (500 year storm) that hit the night before the "outbreak". Anyway, I am observing the survivors and have seen no more issues since I stopped using the suspect trees for a food source. Even some of the larvae I had isolated and sprayed to wash off the brown stains have not exhibited the problem again. (knock on wood). I have had past issues with diseased larvae, especially Hyalophera, Antheraea, and E. calleta, but the discharge was from the anus, not the mouth and another symptom was similar to what I would call a severe prolapse of the anus. Definitely different from this case. Never a recovery with that one, even using Cipro spray on the plants. Jim M. came down to visit the last couple of days and we looked for H. tricolor larvae along the frontage road near Amado and only found a few (15 or so). I believe the two massive storms experienced recently really broke up the colonies and washed many off the acacia and mesquite. Two Sphingicampa larvae were also located. The next day, we tried to locate Agapema homogena in the Santa Catalina Mountains in Bear Canyon. The Rhamnus was in poor condition, possibly due to an early dry period this Winter-Spring. Contrary to past years, not a single larvae could be located. Last year a fair number were located in a short time, but 100% turned out to be parasitized, a fact that undoubtably effected this year's numbers. The only sign of saturniids seen was an old empty H. gloveri cocoon on one of the Rhamnus bushes. Sorry to cover so much at once, but a lot of connections with other threads.
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