Saturniid highlights of your collection.

Love that luna at the bottom right, with the red fringes. Excellent choice for your avatar.

The dark polyphemus moths were a naturally occurring genetic breeding project from a few years ago. If you want to get the story behind them, go to Bill Oehlke’s site. They are now no longer available as the strain with the black gene died off a few years ago. Odds are, nothing like them will come along for a l o n g time, if ever. I was blessed to have obtained some ova for what you see. Unfortunately, they were weak and did not mate for me to start up another round. Believe me, I tried every trick in the book to try to mate them knowing, that if I failed, so also would the strain and future black polys.

I use glass slides with the edges sanded to a rounded 45 degree angle. This reduces, but not always, those lines you’re talking abt. I also tend to keep the glass towards the outer half of the wing where there is less of that ‘hair’ you’re referring to. I’ve also tried to very carefully use an ultra soft paint brush to ever-so-gently stroke down/up the edges of the line. This takes time and has to be done very carefully. Btw….my glass slides of all sizes and weights have handles glued onto them for ease in manipulation.

A. cecrops pamina

A. zephyria

A. io

Keep in mind……these large series were collected over decades in numerous locations, reared, and even include traded specimens from other collectors.

A. io (top two rows) and A. io lilith