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Post by mercuryvapor on Jun 20, 2012 7:09:34 GMT -8
I have been scouring the mountains of western Colorado for Arctia Caja Utahensis caterpillars. After countless miles of hiking I have collected enough that I have 30 for sale. They are spinning cocoons now and the adults will emerge in July. I tried to post an ad but couldn't get it to work. I get all the way to the captcha code. The box with the code doesn't show enough of the code for me to see it. Can anyone help me post the ad? Or if you are interested, the cocoons are$15 each including shipping. U.S. only. Attachments:
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Post by ladobe on Jun 22, 2012 4:05:33 GMT -8
This is a subspecies I reared many times during my active field study years. Their larvae are quite common and easy to find in the Great Basin of UT AND NV, so finding more than enough took very little effort. I have never looked for them in CO, had too many other species to concentrate on all my trips there. But if they are utahensis you might consider arid habitats instead of the montain/riparian habitats other caja subspecies commonly use in other parts of NA (and caja in Europe). FWIW
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Post by mercuryvapor on Jun 22, 2012 12:14:27 GMT -8
That doesn't match my experience here in CO. I ony find the caterpillars in high elevation well watered forests. This is a bad picture but it shows the almost jungle like habitat where I find this species. Attachments:
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Post by ladobe on Jun 22, 2012 21:56:24 GMT -8
I agree that in general caja as a species does prefer wet, montain/riparian habitats pretty much everywhere it's found (NA, Europe, Asia) where their chosen larval food plants grow. But not so much utahensis from my findings. This is just my opinions, but long field experience is what I base them on. The distinct utahensis were found in arid habitats (sagebrush, pinyon/juniper), especially where their preferred Catilleja is abundant; while the what I consider intergrades with or the highly variable transmontana subspecies were found north and east along the west slope of the Rockies in the same habitats you found yours in, and using any of several LFP's. So in CO I'd assume your caja are intergrades or transmontana. In North America I personally recognize 4 distinct subspecies for caja, what I finally settled on after weeding through the dozens of ssp, forms, varieties, races, etc that has been assigned to them at one time of another. Others may not agree, but that's what I use. In general I use these ssp for these general areas as the base to start from: opunlenta - Pacific Northwest transmontana - Rockies utahensis - Great Basin americana - Northeast Where I put my miles and miles and miles in hiking to look for a specific Arctiinae in the west was for Platarctia parthenos. I collected the second ever recorded in UT in the 80's that was also the most southwest ever for this species in NA. Never did find anymore though, nor any livestock despite trying for years. bugguide.net/node/view/613880 |
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evra
Full Member
Posts: 230
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Post by evra on Jun 22, 2012 23:51:51 GMT -8
I'm surprised that P. parthenos is rare in Utah since it appears to be pretty common in Colorado.
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Post by mercuryvapor on Jun 23, 2012 9:06:36 GMT -8
Thanks for the information on a. caja subspecies. I thought Utahensis was what we had here. Maybe they are an intergrade. I am very curious about p. parthenos. They are flying here right now. Here is a picture of one from a week or so ago. I am seeing males flying between 7 and 8 P.M. So far I haven't seen any at any other time incuding lighting at night. I don't think I've seen a female. When do you think the females are flying? The books usually say alder and birch are the food plants. Well there are no alder and birch where they are flying, lots of aspen though. Have you found caterpillars? What do they feed on? Any information regarding their life cycle in the rockies would be much appreciated. Attachments:
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Post by ladobe on Jun 23, 2012 13:41:14 GMT -8
Bug determinations are only as good as the person making them, which in part equates to how long their experience is with all the differences within that taxon. The base I used for caja determinations is the base I used, other folks may not agree with them and label them in CO as utahensis, transmontana or an intergrade between those two distinct subspecies. Add that there are plenty of what I call Super Lumpers and Super Splitters in the field of Lepidopteran research, those that consider most the same and use very few or no assignments past sp level; and those that want to put a name on every variation despite most species colonies of all Lepidoptera having at least some natural variations. With transmontana being a highly variable ssp by default it probably makes your CO bugs even harder to pin down without a long series of them to determine what traits are dominate in that colony. The Rockies are certainly a blend zone though from my findings.
Platarctia parthenos was very rare in UT at the time I collected mine, like I said I had only the second one known from that state then. I have no idea if more have been recorded in UT since.
Platarctia parthenos uses quite a few LFP's, including at least Alnus, Populus, Salix, Betula, Prunus, Vacinnium, Lactuca, Apocynum and Taraxacum that I know of, and there may be more. So your colony could be using any of them if present there, and they do use Populus tremuloides (aspen) that you mentioned was in the area. At what time on the clock the females fly can be subjective to habitat and environmental conditions, but if the males are flying they are there, whether flying or perched waiting for a male to home in. Depending on latitude they are generally a mid May to mid July species, with the peak from mid June to very early July just before they crash for the season.
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