"Funny Sherry I was wondering the same thing about inbreeding, never have seen any mention of it when reading about captive breeding." When I showed up here almost 7 years ago, I took some people to task about the way they were releasing large numbers of inbred giant silk moths. That went over like a lead weight so I have pretty much kept my mouth shut since then. Ladobe criticized one of our members about it last year but no one followed up on it. The quote was "Besides weakening the gene pool, forced inbreeding produces low egg viability, high malformation risk and so therefore high mortality. Not a good practice." One consequence of moth inbreeding helped cause a shift in USDA policy last month. The USDA no longer regulates interstate shipments of Bombyx mori. Those moths are so inbred they can no longer survive in the wild. I raise relatively large numbers (up to 400 of one type) of Saturniidae every year. I go to great lengths to try to make sure the wild males that my girls mate with are not the brothers or the male first cousins that I released. I also try to make sure my released males and females do not mate with each other. I do this by doing releases at least 10 miles (usually more) from my house and releasing the females and males at least 10 miles (usually more) away from each other. I used to mark my males to make sure they were not finding their way home but quit being that paranoid after years of never getting one back. I release at least 10 miles away because 7 miles seems to be the generally accepted maximum distance that a male Saturniidae can follow a female's pheromones. That said, I have seen a claim that male giant silk moths can follow female pheromones for "nearly 30" miles. YMMV I preface my next statement by saying I have no clue how this guy operates. There is a guy in Ohio that raises 3k-4k cecropias each year. I read that he has been raising them since '86. Something wiped out his cats in 2008 and he had to start over in 2009. I'm real curious if inbreeding affected his setup and I'd like to know what happens to all the moths he doesn't sell (IOW, do they get let go). As for inbreeding butterflies and affecting the gene pool, there is a lot of info/controversy on the net about it because of people raising butterflies for mass release at weddings. One related article I have posted before is linked at the end of this post. Last thought: I know of one inbred butterfly that has been studied a lot: monarchs on Hawaii. I believe around 20% of them are white now. My guess is they do alright because the favorable weather conditions don't put a lot of stress on them. They would probably have trouble with migrating to Mexico and surviving the winters there. Anyway, there is a lot of research out there about them. KC Here is a link that might be useful: All Aflutter

I dropped off that cluster to a friend that has huge vines. She has Aristolochia macrophylla. It is climbing over 20 ft. up one of her trees. I placed them into a net paint strainer, put some of the vine down in, and then carefully wired it to the vine so that they could climb out. I know that many will not make it, but at least they will have a chance now with more food. I have another batch that I am raising. I usually offer people small plants and then later caterpillars to people in my area. Pipevine Swallowtails always overlay at one point or another.

I'm glad you're still raising cats, Dan! There are a good many moths whose caterpillars are beautiful, while the adult moths are plain brown things, roper. Some of the slug caterpillars, like the stinging rose cats, are quite beautiful - the adults aren't. Here's a picture I made several years ago of a dagger moth cat that I thought was quite fetching - The little pipevine swallowtail caterpillars are growly rapidly, and I released my first adult PVS from the second batch of 2014 today, a female. This will be my third batch! We've had a lot of rain lately, so maybe the pipevines will be able to keep up. Sherry

GSTs are very vulnerable to predators - they're a favorite of both wasps and stink bugs! :( I raise mine in reptarium/butterfly cages. Tdr4, earlier today I released the 41st giant swallowtail that I've released in a little over a week, I'm raising 6 cats and there are more eggs and hatchlings on my host plants. Two of the cats I'm raising now are eating orange tree leaves, and the other four are eating ptelea trifoliata/wafer ash/hops tree leaves - three of the ptelea cats are pupating, in the "C" now, the other one is about to be, but the two orange tree cats are only in about the 3rd instar. Cats grow much faster on ptelea than they do on either citrus leaves or rue leaves, and if you want your citrus tree cats to live at all, you have to give them still tender leaves. I haven't had as many tender leaves to cut for these two citrus cats as I did those in the other batch, so I'm going to get on my ladder and try to find some that don't have eggs and/or hatchling cats on them. Even hatchling GSTs can eat old, relatively tough ptelea leaves and still thrive, plus, ptelea makes a lot of new grow in response to being cut. Since you have to cut a lot of leaves to feed the cats, it stays in an almost continual state of growth, especially when you feed it chicken manure like I do. Maybe if you prune and fertilize your citrus tree and water as needed, you'll get lots of new growth so you can successfully raise your giant swallowtails. They're teeming around here! Do you want some ptelea trifoliata seeds? I noticed some on my woods bushes. You don't have to do anything special to them, just keep them in a cool place all winter, and plant them in the spring - mine all came up this past spring. MissSherry