Breeding of Eumorpha specis

[Rudi]

Dear breeders.

My name is Rudi and my special interests are breeding Sphingidae´s from all over the world.
I had some good experiences the last years in breeding asian and north american specis.

But I had much problems with breeding Eumorpha´s.
In 2010 in spring I had some pupae of Eumorpha pandorus from USA, but I had no luck with mating them.

In August I traveled with two colleagues to Mexico. We found some females of many different specis, Eumorpha specis also.
Only from Eumorpha satellita I got any eggs in our flyingcages.
From Eum. typhon, anchemolus, triangulum and labruscae I don´t got any eggs. But the females of these specis were full of eggs, but don´t deposited any egg.

From the eggs I got from satellita I got about 100 pupae. With 20 imagos, which are hatched out at the end of september, I tried a rebreeding, but they don´t mating. And the females were completely hollow, without any eggs. I controled about 10 females and there were no egg.

Now my question is, if the genus of Eumorpha is a special problematic genus?
Have anybody of you good experience with breeding them? Could tell me somebody how to get matings and so on?

It would be very helpfull, if somebody could answer me, if it is a generally problem with Eumorpha specis, or maybe it is a problem, only I have with this so interesting genus.

Best regards and thanks a lot for your help in advance.

Rudi
Germany

PS: I sorry for my bad spoken english.

[Rudi]

Hello together.

Could really nobody help?
Are I´m the only entomologist who is breeding Eumorpha-specis?

It would be so great, if somebody could help.
Thank´s a lot.

Rudi

[oehlkew]

Hi Rudi,
Yes, you probably are one of the few people attempting to breed Eumrpha species.
There are some Sphingidae that do not feed as adults. They will readily lay eggs in brown paper bags just like Saturniidae. There are other Sphingidae species that need to be fed to get them to lay eggs. Species in the Eumorpha genus all feed as adults, and you might need to feed your females and males to have them mate and lay eggs. You might also just have to wait a few days for them to "get desperate".
You might also have to experiment with providing larval host plast foliage to get the females to lay their eggs.
The only Eumorpha most people have reared have been ones found as larvae.
Several years ago there were many Eumorpha pandorus pupae available from a source in Pennsylvania. Maybe he just got lucky with egg production from a single female or found a large number of eggs or larvae. There was a good demand for them, but I have not seen him offer them since. Here on PEI in eastern Canada, most of the local Sphingidae are non-feeders as adults, but there are some I have had to feed (Hemaris thysbe) and or put in sleeves over hostplant (Hyles gallii) to get them to oviposit. I am very interested in documenting sightings of Sphingidae from the Amercas, and in displaying images of adults and larvae on various webpages. Maybe you could help.

Bill Oehlke