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Breedign report Brahmaea certhia

Origin: Jiangsu, China

Habitat: From Korea / China to Indonesia

Climate: Subtropical / Tropical

Food Plants: Ligustrum, Syringa, Fraxinus

Year: 2008

September 24

I responded to an ad by Johann Muller on Actias, he offers Brahmaea certhia eggs. Because he keeps several females in the same cage and not all females are fertilized, he can’t send the eggs. He will wait and see what hatches and send them over as first instar larvae.

Oktober 16

I found a package with 20 caterpillars on the doormat, privet twigs wrapped in a plastic bag surrounded by a flat cardboard box. The larvae survived the trip without any problem and looking at the size, they see to be second instar (L2 stage). Because they have reasonable size, I put them directly into a container with a few fresh privet branches on water, they already have beautiful grown tubercles.

Oktober 26

Despite the low temperature, the caterpillars grow rapidly. I keep them in the living room at a temperature that fluctuates between 17 and 21 ° C in a clear plastic box that has one mesh side for ventilation. Most caterpillars are now at the end of L3 but I manage to take a shot from one of the smaller larvae. At this stage they are really beautiful.

November 1

Not a single larva lost and the growth continues. This picture is of a caterpillar at the end of L4, which is preparing for its moult, it is easy to see the small head capsule. The thickening immediately behind the small head capsule is its new head that’s still hidden under its old skin. Left on the branch you can see a piece of skin from a brother or sister that hasn’t taken the trouble to eat it yet. Up, right a family member has just shed its skin. To increase growth a little, I bring the larvae over to my climate compartment with a temperature of 20 to 25 ºC and 13 hours of light a day.

November 2

The last caterpillar has moulted and all larvae are now in their final stage. As is normal in Brahmaea caterpillars, all tubercles disappear suddenly in the L5 stage, the long prolegs of the caterpillar are now clearly visible.

Freeze response of a caterpillar. This picture shows the red / black eye spots, the caterpillar takes this position when interrupted or disturbed to deter attackers. The eye spots are already present from L3 but are quite small and are hard to see between the tubercles. Just a little above and below the eye spots are two pairs of white stumps, at that place the tubercles where attached during previous instars.

November 4

They really eat a lot at this stage and I find at the end of the day is a bunch defoliated twigs. Because I've been keeping them together, I have to use the biggest tank I have, it takes quite some effort to get in enough privet to last for one day.

November 8

Today, I find the first caterpillars running circles at the bottom of the tank, that’s the sign that they have stopped eating and are looking for a place to pupate. As I always do with caterpillars that pupate underground, they each go in their own sealed cottage cheese cup almost filled completely filled with unfertilized, slightly moist soil. The cups are orderly stacked in the climate compartment so they won’t be disturbed.

November 14

Very carefully I look in the bottom cups of the first stack, the cups were the caterpillar crawled into the ground first. As the caterpillars grow so fast, I dare to take a look after 6 days, fast growing caterpillars usually pupate quickly. In the first cup I find a fully hardened pupa so I work myself carefully through the rows with cups from bottom to top and from left to right, I come to the conclusion that they pupate four days after they have gone underground. After the 14th pupa, I find one that has clearly not been hardened, it has a brown colour but the whitish wax layer is not present. Really fresh pupa are green and partly transparent. I will leave the remaining 5 cups put for a few days. A very distinctive feature of the Brahmaea certhia pupae are two knobs just behind the head at the back side of the pupa, most Brahmaea species have them but not as large as these.

December 6

The time has come, the first moth that escaped his pupa shell it is a male. The moths are pretty skittish and threaten waving their wings if disturbed. Trying to pick them up is not easy because they let themselves fall on the ground. Finally I manage to get one on my finger but a couple of attempts to put it on a plant fail. I settle for a couple of pictures while sitting on my finger.

They are really gorgeous moths with a complex pattern of lines on the wings, at the end of the wing pattern is lighter in colour so it seems as if the tips of the wings shimmer.

December 7

More moths came out, there are also two females moths between the newcomers. Later that evening I witness the first mating.

December 9

Today, I carefully take out the first eggs from the cage, so far it has been a successful breed. Now it's wait and see how the rest of the pupa will do, till now 5 came out and there are 15 left, I suppose the rest will follow soon.

December 24

The first eggs hatched! I'm just in time to capture the moment, two days before hatching the eggs turn slightly darker in colour. Most of the eggs are sold through Actias again but I keep a couple of eggs of every female to start a second generation. With the offspring from several females, the greatest diversity of genes is kept and the first signs of inbreed will get visible several generations later.

As the young just hatched caterpillars have crawled out, they are still pale, it takes about two hours for the pigment to give the larva its normal colour. The young caterpillars spin threads to prevent themselves for falling.

This breed went well again and because I've kept quite a few eggs, I have to put them in several containers, eventually I end up with just under the 60 pupae. In one of the containers I had some problems because of condensation, some caterpillars become sick and weak. Because I kept one container in the living room, it had little hours of daylight and the temperature varied between 15 and 20 degrees. These pupae didn’t emerge after eight weeks, I suspect that the pupae went in diapause because of the short days and low temperatures. For that reason I kept them in the refrigerator for three months and in spring they moved to my garden closet. After several months two of the pupae emerged, the rest didn’t come out. When I checked them one month later, the pupae lost too much moisture and dried out.