Hand-pairing Saturniidae of different species

[Fernando]

Hi to everyone,

Currently I have a male Rothschildia cincta gerreronis and a female Eupackardia calleta. I have no idea whether they are "compatible", but at least they are somewhat close relatives, so I want to hand-pair them and see if some nice hybrid comes up.

The question is: how can I hand-pair them? I watched some tutorials on YouTube and followed the directions, but they won't pair. Any recommendations?

Thanks in advance!

[evra]

To get Saturniids to pair, I think the female has to be calling. I don't think a male will mate with a female that isn't calling.

Being in different genera, I doubt that they are closely related enough for the male R. cincta to detect the female E. calleta's pheromone. If you want to try hybridizing these species, I would think that you should try either another Rothschildia x R. cincta, or a Callosamia x E. calleta.

On top of that, I find R. cincta to be one of the more difficult Saturniids to get to pair normally anyway. Male R. cincta just don't seem all that interested in mating, unlike most other male Saturniids. It makes rearing this species kind of frustrating.

Good luck though.

[admin]

I made one movie on hard-pairing of Saturnia:
www.insectnet.com/videos/field/park/park.htm

The pairing takes places about 3/4 of he way through the movie. It might be helpful.

[Fernando]

evra: a friend of mine had success getting hybrids between E. calleta and Rothschildia hesperus, that's why I thought it could be possible to get hybrids with R. cincta.

As for R. cincta pairing, I don't know if gerreronis subspecies is too different from R. cincta cincta, but in my case I've had no problems pairing them. I've had 3 or 4 chances to pair these, and all of them have been successful. I just put a male and a female in one of those jumbo-sized meshed enclosures during the night, and voilà!

Actually, I find E. calleta considerably more difficult to pair in captivity.

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@clark: thanks for the video! That's exactly the way I tried to pair my specimens, but I didn't succeed.

[africaone]

I handcrossed a numbers of African Saturniidae. The technic I used is always the same.
exiting the moths by brushing the top of the abdomen. There is not a precise rule, the aim being to obtain the valvas of the males open and close regularly and the genital tip of the females extruded (as it is the case when she is calling). After, you have to put together the two tips of the abdomen in the right position and expect the male taking rightly and hardly the tip female abdomen.
The difficulty is to keep hardly the two specimens one in each hands during the operation (that sometimes takes some dozens minutes, longer is always synonym of failure) and used the free fingers to help the abdomen coming in the good position.
When the male is "well accroched" to the female (you can take as reference pairing you have yet seen) you can release him and he become quiet like he sleeps. after you can release the female hoping she accepted the pairing and do not move too much (otherwise the male will also move and detach).
The pairing can take some dozen minutes to few hours. You know that it succeed when young larves hatch (or with experience after some days you can detect via the shape of the egg if it is fecondated or not).
There is big part of feeling when you do handpairing.
sorry because my english is too poor to be more precise and explicit.

[Fernando]

Thanks africaone, actually, I understood pretty well your explanation, and it worked! ;D They are now pairing. I took some pictures (sorry about the poor quality, took them with my cellphone).

Click on the pictures to see the larger versions:




Now, let's see if the "magic" happens I'll keep you informed.

[africaone]

[mooks666]

Congrats m8 but wether or not they will produce viable ova is uncertain and if they are they might not fully develop to pupation. But then again you may be lucky.
Im sure lve seen hofferri x calletta hybrid photos somewhere though..

Interesting experiment m8..

[Fernando]

Feb 1, 2012 8:23:50 GMT -8 mooks666 said:

Congrats m8 but wether or not they will produce viable ova is uncertain and if they are they might not fully develop to pupation. But then again you may be lucky.
Im sure lve seen hofferri x calletta hybrid photos somewhere though..

Interesting experiment m8..

At least the eggs haven't collapsed yet, so I guess something is developing inside. Let's see what happens.

[africaone]

why loss one or more ovas ?
lets do the nature !

[Fernando]

Sadly, the eggs are totally deflated by now. Either these species are not compatible, or just the pairing wasn't successful.