Hickory Horn Devil Emergency!-- please help?

[scouser]

Hello & thank you for any help you may give me! Am a newbie at mothraising, & had some C. Regalis emerge from last fall's pupae in late April--(VA had a very mild winter & early spring) All pupae emerged but for 1, but I hung onto her on the "just in case" theory, & kept her inside till now. (we've had the AC on just the past 2 weeks or so). I believe she's still alive-- she reacts when touched. So today I put her outside in a cage, thinking the warmth would cause her to eclose. But now am 2nd guessing myself-- should I try mimicing colder conditions first, & then warmth, to coax her out?
The reason I ask is my 2nd problem-- can Regalis ever be double-brooded in Virgina? I mated 1 of my April females, & raised a crop of lil HHD's from her eggs, gave some to local teacher friends & kept some. They began pupation 6/9-6/11. Is it possible these pupae may eclose this summer?

Because today, I've just been contacted by a lady who heard about me & the horn devils from one of the teachers. Her 8 year old son is handicapped-- he can't go out, but he's enthralled by all the insect stuff he's seeing on his computer screen. She was hoping that I might have more HHD's so he could raise one. Well I felt terrible, & told her that I didn't know for sure, but possibly my new pupae might double-brood, in which case I'd try to mate one & give her son some eggs. She was so grateful-- that's when I thought to check again on the other 1 pupa, & try to get her to emerge now.

Any and all advice would be much appreciated & thank you so much for your kind help!

[greenie]

I am by far not an expert but I think there might be a problem in finding a wild male to mate with your female if and when she emerges.At any rate I did notice a classified ad for 2 doz HHD ova for $10 shipped which might help you out with your young friend.

[oehlkew]

Some things to consider:

Regalis have been known to sometimes spend more than one winter in diapause. Perhaps this pupa is going to do that.

You do not indicate how you are storing the pupa, but you have indicated you have an air conditioner working. Air conditioners generally remove a great deal of humidity from the air. I think you are at risk of causing this pupa to desiccate unless you have it someplace where there is sufficient humidity. If it loses too much moisture, the pupal shell may harden to point moth will not be able to rupture it to escape, or moth may lose sufficient moisture to dry surrounding air, and it will die.

I recommend an enclosed hatching container with some added moisture to avoid desiccation. If it has not hatched by fall, properly store it over the winter and wait until next spring.

I think there is usually just a single flight of regalis in your area, usually in June-July.

Bill Oehlke

[scouser]

Hello & thank you both for your replies--
Greenie, yes, I did just find the HHD ova ad & will order some-- thank you so much for pointing it out! I'd not even thought about the issue of finding a wild male til you mentioned it-- have been assuming that since somehow my female called a male in April that there are wild males still around here. From what I've read--just like Mr. Oehlke's now said-- usually in my area (Virginia), there's only 1 brood that emerges in June. But there must've also been an early brood this year, because I had that wild male in April who mated my female. Cuz where else could he possibly have come from, 2 months early? That's why I'm hoping that since my larvae (born from eggs laid in mid-April) were fully grown & pupated now, in mid-June-- that they just might double-brood & eclose this summer.

Mr. Oehlke-- thank you for your reply & I'm honored to speak with you-- your terrific website helped me out so much when I raised the original regalis last summer. To answer your Q's, I was raising the pupa indoors, in a mesh pop-up laundry hamper/cage. I "nested" the pupa in a bit of coir (coconut fiber), & just let it sit on top of the soil in a small potted houseplant that I keep in the cage, in indirect natural light. I remove the pupa whenever I water the plant, & mist it (the pupa) weekly. We've been turning the central AC on & off for about a month as the temperature here fluctuates, but usually my house is between say 70 to 78 degrees.

Currently, I have the pupa in its same mesh cage outside on the porch, hoping the warmth & light would cause it to eclose now, in June, when its fellow wild moths are flying. So do you think it'd be best to keep it outside for a bit more??-- or take it back inside & plan to overwinter it for a 2nd year?

Thanks again for your help!

[oehlkew]

Since you did have a wild male make an appearance in April, perhaps there
are two flights in your area. Perhaps it was just an anomaly due to unusualy warm spring and maybe the male pupa was in a location where there was additional warmth, such as in soil in a sheltered space or even near a heated home basement.
When I have had regalis spend a second winter in diapause, it has been after the pupae spend the entire anticipated spring/summer in an enclosed
emergence container. When I went to clean out the container in the fall
after succesful eclosions of most pupae as expected, I noticed a non emergent pupa and assumed at first that it must have expired for some reason. The pupa still had a healthy weight and a pliant abdomen so I put it back in cold storage for another winter, and it emerged the following spring in June. Since the first experience, I have had others, and have had reports from other people with regalis and other species that have spent more than one winter in diapause.
I never throw out any cocoons or pupae in the fall if they seem to have good weight. Hyalophora euryalus and Hyalophora gloveri have sometimes done the same thing. This is from personal experience and also what others have told me. I have also had the odd Eacles imperialis pini spend more than one winter in diapause despite being placed in same environment as siblings which only spent one winter in diapause.
Short answer is I would leave the regalis out until fall, but keep misting as you have been doing. I would avoid any direct sunlight, and my only concern would be desiccation.

Pretty sure I have had reliable reports for two year diapause in Eupackardia calleta and also Callosamia angulifera, but always the exception rather than the rule. Maybe it happens more often than we expect and unemerged cocoons and/or in most hobbyists'
possession have mistakenly been discarded in the fall, interpreted as dead.
Those specimens that have spent the second winter in diapause seem none the worse for the extra time at rest.
Glad to hear the website info was useful.

Bill Oehlke

[scouser]

Mr Oehlke-- thank you for your reply & helpful info. I'm in Norfolk, VA-- at the very bottom of the state close to the N. Carolina border--it was so unusually warm here this past winter I had flowers that bloomed over Christmas clear thru into the spring. I take your point-- maybe this area is double-brooded if conditions are right, or, as you said, maybe the wild April male was just one lucky pupa who'd happened to be in the right place & time when I just happened to have a female who'd eclosed 2 months early.

Wait a sec-- lite bulb over my head!-- maybe it wasn't a "wild male" after all-- just dawned on me-- he may've been one of her siblings. I had 9 pupae that I'd overwintered in an unheated garage, & in April, because it was so warm, I brought them all inside (uncovered) into the cage where I could keep an eye on them. Over about a 2 1/2 week period, all but 1 (the one I've still got) emerged. The males I just turned loose at night, but I kept & hung the females outside. So maybe her mate was actually one of her own brothers, still hanging about in the vicinity. (if so, they had many beautiful children, contrary to what I've heard of sibling matings!)

Maybe I messed up the normal June emergence time frame by me taking the pupa out of the dirt in the shoebox in April, & bringing them into the light & warmth of the house. Or, since it was such an early spring, maybe her mate really was a wild male-- but an anomaly, like you noted. Hmmm.... will never know.

But that gives me another time frame issue-- if the female pupa I've got left does not eclose by say, end of July, then I should probably just put her back into the dirtbox in the coolest part of my garage & hope for that 2nd diapause, right? (& thank you for all the diapause info-- that is fascinating-- why would some emerge & others nnot, of the same batch of pupae?)

But back to my lone pupa-- if I leave her out to say, August or September, then even if she does emerge, there won't be any males left around at that time to mate her, like Greenie was talking about.

So she'd be born & die for no purpose.

[oehlkew]

You wrote: "But that gives me another time frame issue-- if the female pupa I've got left does not eclose by say, end of July, then I should probably just put her back into the dirtbox in the coolest part of my garage & hope for that 2nd diapause, right? (& thank you for all the diapause info-- that is fascinating-- why would some emerge & others nnot, of the same batch of pupae?)"
First question you have answered yourself, maybe??
Second question, I don't know, but it is an interesting survival strategy.

"But back to my lone pupa-- if I leave her out to say, August or September, then even if she does emerge, there won't be any males left around at that time to mate her, like Greenie was talking about.

"So she'd be born & die for no purpose."

Yes, I would be very surprised if you have a natural flight in August-September, but maybe you do, and the collectors in your area have simply stopped looking at that time, or maybe it is the exception rather than the rule.

Regalis typically have two flights in Florida:
late May and September.

If it were me, I would keep it warm and humid until end of September just in case development has started and it is no longer in true diapause, but I am just guessing, really.

Bill Oehlke

[scouser]

You're right Mr. Oehlke-- she may already have started developing now, so now the better choice is to continue taking care of her on the porch till fall, & hope for the best for her.

I should've just left them, all the pupae, right where they were, in the dirtbox in the garage, until they emerged on their own in their own good time. My fault-- this is my 1st experience with emerging adult regalis pupae & I was afraid I might forget about them out in the garage, & with the early spring, might miss it if they emerged unexpectedly, earlier than in June as I'd read they would. It seemed safer to put them in the house, but i didn't fully think it through.

Am saddened to realize the adults that I let loose in April may not have ever found any wild mates. I don't know enough about moth life cycles-- in my locality-- to be doing this; I've just been going by general information that I've read. Now I'm fully "getting" your point-- that local conditions rule, & sometimes alter what's in the books, about flight times & single vs. double broods.

Moths are much more complicated to raise than butterflies-- there are a lot more variables it seems. So thank you again for your advice, Mr. Oehlke-- I will follow it.