There are only about 5 or 6 serious collectors of Castniidae. The problem is that they fly fast, many are crepuscular and they're difficult to find, and when they are found they've often shredded their wings. Then there are many bauble collectors who like the big showy ones, which forces the prices ...

wollastoni wrote: ↑Tue Oct 11, 2022 10:39 am Very common species in French Guiana too.

Olivier

I believe that T. atymnius is actually very rare in French Guiana. The species that is very common there, as it is throughout most of South America, is T. licus.

Yes, it's certainly the most common species in most Central American countries.

John

The living specimen in your photo is a male of Telchin atymnius futilis.

They are sometimes known as "Giant butterfly moths". Some are very colourful and they do have clubbed antennae.

Below are my drawers of these genera, which was part of the material used to produce the new paper (above), Sorry about the picture quality but they were just quick snaps with my mobile:

A new paper on a couple more castniid genera has just been published (details below). If anyone would like a pdf of the full paper (which is pretty big) please pm me. Worthy, Bob, Gonzalez, Jorge & Zilli, Alberto. (2022). A review of the genera Amauta Houlbert, 1918 and Divana J.Y. Miller, 1982 ...

africaone wrote: ↑Fri Oct 07, 2022 9:10 am May be Bob can inform why ponteni / imperialis seems not illustrated or treated in the book ?

The book was on the Old World Colias only. It was already a massive amount of work, and to add North and South American species would have made it impossible.

I don't know if P. polyxenes is the same, but with the closely related European P. machaon, the colour is pretty random. Both brown and green pupae will overwinter or some may emerge, the main deciding factors are temperature and daylength.

If it's from Tingo Maria, it's M. helenor lacommei.

It's M. helenor. It's impossible to know the subspecies without locality data.

I've never heard of G. rhamni having two generations, but they do spend about a year as adults. The ones that emerge in summer overwinter but don't pair and lay until the following spring.

Adam, there are some species that do that, e.g. Euphydryas maturna lays on trees such as Ash (Fraxinus sp.) and feeds on that pre-hibernation, then feeds on Honeysuckle (Lonicera sp.) post-hibernation.

In Britain, Pyrgus malvae usually feeds on Wild strawberry (Fragaria vesca).

What an amazing experience!

I only came cross one hecuba when I was there, but I had no problem luring down telemachus at the Auberge des orpailleurs.

It's hecuba, not telemachus.

Great piece of work! I don't know what sources gave Vaccinium as a foodplant but they're very wrong. The only Eurasian Colias that feeds on Vaccinium is palaeno, there are also a few other North American species.

Oh, OK Dave, I didn't realise they were still open to the public.

Here's a photo of the box with U. sloanus and E. iphitas.

Paul K wrote: ↑Tue Sep 27, 2022 4:04 pm How much was asking price for this beauty

Don't know - POA!

They're still going strong but relocated to another part of England when Robin Ford decided to take a back seat and his daughter took over the company. I'm not sure that they still have premises open to the public as I believe that they're purely mail order now. I would guess that they still have a ...