Sharing a photo of two of my specimens of Troides plateni here. These were farmed by a breeder in Palawan, hence the pristine state of their velvet black wings.
http://i.imgur.com/GVd515O.jpg
A common yet quite magnificent species in my opinion.


They are so beautiful! In pristine condition ...

Bigger size could also just be genetic variation. Assuming optimum feeding levels, optimum time, sun, water, plant utilization, resting time, I am sure most of the specimens would still be normal size and then a few bigger than the others, where something in the genes is different. Would it be ...

Correct, I use rolls of flexible fiberglass window screening, as I have fabricated and used a lot of these traps over the past half century. UV resistance is a must. But even this heavy duty window screening can be chewed up by hornets and bigger wasps. Over 300 of my 464 entomological ...

@vabrou thank you so much for sharing these very inspiring designs! About your bait trap with the automated collecting chamber: in the chambers where you use ethyl acetate, how do you dose it so that it lasts for 24 hours? Are you using a doser that drops something every half an hour, or just pour a ...

You are wrong, there are many species in tropics that you can see adults only few weeks or days of the year as they have only one generation per year. I don’t think there is explanation on that as some species have source of food available all year round but still have one or two generation. It ...

For species like papilio machaon I think there won't be any diapause, in France machaon can have 3 or 4 generations in summer and as long as the days are 12 hours of sunlight, which it is year round in Panama, there should not be any diapause. But correct me if I am wrong, at least that's what I ...

It sounded weird to me as well. But whatever floats your boat I suppose. I was amazed to see how many people in the EU raise Lymantria dispar-
Seems like there would be some diapause issues anyway with more northern species.
I still recall seeing dispar ova covering everything, same with the "tent ...

@Jshuey I hear you and thanks for that reminder. I was just a little bit missing my old world butterflies, having left Europe a year ago, and the North American swallowtails remind me a lot of the German machaon and iphiclides podalirius. The yellow and black colours give me a nice feeling of "home ...

I was considering getting myself a few species from the US, and rear them all year round in Panama. I know from Adam that he has been doing that successfully in Thailand with Papilio machaon and others, so my question is which species of North American papilio would be ideal to breed all year round ...

@Cassidinae yes I made sure it was a new moon night, it was even cloudy, and very light mist was falling, so it was very wet and humid, but no rain, absolutely perfect night, in the mountains of Cerro Azul, view into a valley of primary rain forest and secondary growth, at least two or three ...

Luehdorf - as far as moths, can you post a photo of the canvas and lighting you are catching at night? It is also very important to catch in the new moon. But you probably know that.


I use an EntoLED by Bioform Germany, here is some detailed info about it, its in German but google translate ...

@bobw I alwas thought castniidae have more collectors focused on them, since I often see some really expensive 500-800 eur per specimen castniidae on ebay or some German sellers website. How come some species are so expensive if they are not collected that often?

@trehopr1 @chuck @Jshuey really appreciate your detailed responses. It must be a mix of all the different factors. When taking into account the pesticide drift, the areas where I was searching being heavily used by humans, a lot of light pollution and then probably not hitting the right location at ...

I have been living in Panama since January now, and I go into the field every week but what surprised me most is that butterfly numbers are really low all over the country.
I live in Panama city near the Panama canal, surrounded by the Soberania National Park, and my apartment building is just next ...

Does anyone know if the Frankfurt fair is confirmed for this year yet? I want to book my flights. but not before I'm sure it's going ahead.


I am member of Apollo who organises it, and I just quickly checked the website and it looks confirmed. I have just sent an email to our president and asked ...

Will do that! Should I spread the androconial fold? I remember we had this disucssion once a few years ago. What is the best practice?

@adamcotton I just checked the androconial fold and it’s white. So that means it’s Parides anchises farfan for sure?

I am preparing a longer trip to the cloud forests of Chiriqui at the border to Costa Rica.
I only know that Chrysina beetles come to light at night. What else should I know in order to be successful? When at night do they come? Any other advice?

I will definitely try to catch more specimens, and once they are spread share the photos here. I initially tried inaturalist to identify the specimens but probably a lot of the ids are not correct since people only id by photo. I even found parides sesostris, erithalion and eurimedes there for this ...

Wait until you see the price of maple right now. I’d say do use a local wood, but take your time and investigate the right one.


Good point, let’s hope in a few months prices for raw materials go down again. I’ll investigate and share my findings here for sure. It’s gonna probably take even more ...