The wide ranging Actias luna....but why?

[exoticimports]

A. luna (male) is the most common saturnid at my MV light. It's almost close to equal all others combined. I ponder why.

The nearest walnut is 1km away through heavy forest. The only other plant I've ever found larvae/ pupae on ONCE was a pine tree.

So, assuming they are coming from the walnut stands, why? Why go so far? The females, one must assume, are in that same walnut stand. There is no way they see my MV at that distance.

I suppose the obvious answer is that they are eating something else, but I'm not believing that.

Chuck

[leptraps]

I have found larvae of Actias Luna on Butter Nut, Shag Bark Hickory and Pecan (In Mississippi). However, I reared them on Walnut in Ohio and Chinkapin Oak in Florida.

I found several larva in late September 2017 crawling across a gravel parking area in Monroe County, IN. The adults emerged in early April 2018. Normally when I find larvae crawling on the ground, I usually get adult parasites. The majority are Diptera, Tachinids.

There is a small Tachinid that I collect and kill by the thousands in my light traps. I have attempted to field pin at least one adult of each species of Tachinids fly I collect. Sooner or later I will meet another Dipterist.

Back in the late 1970's I was living in SW Virginia. I was collecting Satyrium liparops and Satyrium falacer in a huge patch of Dog Bane along the Poverty Creek Road when a beat up old Pickup Truck came to an abrupt halt and out of it came a guy with the biggest massive beard I ever saw. It was not long, it just surrounded his head and was golden blond. He wore a floppy safari hat and had a butterfly net in his hand. After quick introduction, I met one Steve Strasburger. He was a Physicist by profession and a Dipterist by avocation.

He visited me a number of times and we would collect together. He gave me several gallon glass jars and a gallon of alcohol. As I added flies to the jar, I would add a quart or so of alcohol. This exchange went on for two years. Then he stopped coming.

He suffered a debilitating stroke from which he never recovered. What I remember most about those jars of flies was the smell. It was vile. A slight sniff would make you want to hurl. He claimed that he became accustomed to the stench.

[papilio28570]

Here in North Carolina and also in New Jersey I only encountered Luna Moths in the vicinity of Sweetgum. Any larvae I found were on Sweetgum as well as Imperial Moths and Royal Walnut Moths. I have tried rearing Royal Walnut Moths on walnut but the cats reject it. My only success has been with Sweetgum.

[arizonamother]

I knew that I have been told that luna prefers other trees in various regions of the USA and Canada.

Checking this site:
www.nhm.ac.uk/our-science/data/hostplants/search/index.dsml

You can see that various birches and oaks are reported hosts.

In Ferguson's MONA fascicle 20.2b,p 210, he says "In Canada the common host is white birch (Betula papyrifera Marsh.),although larvae have also been found there on many other trees and shrubs, including..." There follows a long list of plants.

M