A couple of eBay sellers have been flooding the market with aberrant specimens created by injecting chemicals (tungstate I believe) into fresh pupa. Although this may seem a harmless method of making money, it waters down the thrill of finding an aberrant in the field. I for one have always kept a s...

Beautiful drawers all. Mine are all by family, but with a mixed bag, the eye must linger longer to take it all in, superb.

These hybrids have been showing up on EBAY, gotta admit they are beautiful, and so I bought this one.

It's hard to say without knowing the size, and the last 2 are pretty worn. I would say the first one looks to me like piatrix or innubens.

That's a lot of blue, and very bright blue. Beautifull.

I have never seen tails that long, impressive.

This season I have noticed more MST in Central Ontario than in the past. This July I have seen at least one on most of my outings, generally I only see 3 or 4 for the month.

The frenulum for sexing catocala is well explained complete with drawing in Sergeant's "Legion of Night". I have found this the only way to sex catocala over the years, actually did not know that it was the same for other species as antennae is generally the quickest for saturnids, sphinx,...

I have never known a saturnid female to come to my light that hadn't mated yet. Never had a female at the light that didn't lay gravid ova. Of course I don't rear from every female that shows up at the light, but all that I have, the ova have always hatched. My understanding is that priority one is ...

My experience with Papilio canadensis in Central Ontario is that when they are first out (late may/early June) the puddlers (all male) are all fresh. And for the next few days they are fresh. But 2 or 3 weeks later, there are still quite a few puddlers, but they are now more flight worn. I would agr...

I have both balsa and the old Bioquip adjustable boards which are a fairly hard surface. With them I have to use insect pins for mounting the glassine strips as they have sharper points. I do prefer the balsa, don't use foam, seems to be too much "play" or movement for my liking, but to ea...

I have both common lilac (Syringa vulgaris) and late lilac (Syringa villosa) at my cottage in Central Ontario. The common lilac blooms 3 or 4 weeks before the late lilac. Typically the Papilio canadensis is just coming out as the common lilac is dying. But thankful for the late lilac, which is in fu...

I too rotate the board so I can use my right hand to pull up the left wings. I just have more confidence in doing the fine work with my right hand. I have tried with my left hand on the left wings from below, just not as precise. I use forecepts for both large and small specimens, but have to admit ...

It has been an odd year in central Ontario for the tiger swallowtail (P. canadensis primarily). The extreme hot weather for a week in early April followed by cold, then another few days of extreme heat the latter part of May started the emergences in this area. Saw lots of male puddlers toward the e...

Finally found this difficult to find butterfly. Had been looking each May for the past 3 years, and this year I was fortunate to locate them on two dates. The first time I saw both a male and the more beautiful female. A couple of days later I saw only a single male. These tiny leps feed on the Amer...

I have never shingled on the spreading board, too much unnecessary risk. Agree with Paul, other than Vernon who spreads thousands each year, I find that a dozen boards is plenty.

Have never experienced that before, very unusual. Would have been interesting to see if the wild male Polyphemus would have paired with either of your females, I assume they would have if they were attracted by the pheromones, but any ova would have been sterile. Here in the east, H. columbia also f...

They are difficult to catch, but I find I have much better success with a catocala bait trap. Here is a picture I took behind our house of a live one, the purple outline shows up pretty well.

It seems the price has come down over time, I got my copy from the publisher in January 2018 for 400 Euro (approx $600 Cdn).

Didn't see any, I wasn't out searching for them, but didn't see any at all, saw very few leps in general. Saw a couple of citrus swallowtails, monarchs, gulf fritillary, and a few blues.

DSCF2270 copy.JPG The larvae kills the host stalk. That makes them a real PITA to breed in numbers or continuously, when they keep killing the host plant. Chuck is right, the euphorian larvae once in final install will sometimes chew right through the stock of the tagala vine, killing all the leave...