Cecropia and Promethea Moths

I must put this to Bug Guide. I know this is rare.

Any cross breeding between these two species documented before? I will be curious to know about it..!

I wold still like to solve the mystery why this female Promethea Silk Moth sought after and mated with this male Cecropia that I found in the tree. Also, there was another female Promethea Silk Moth I found near the Cecropria while this was going on.

Awesome!!

We never see any of the larger moths in Canada. I've only ever seen two polyphemus moths.

Hi Hayden. I found 3 Cecropia moth cocoons on bushes. This one was healthy, another died coming out, and another one still not out yet. I don't know where the male Promethea moth came from and why he mated with this moth instead of the female Promethea on the same bush.

Where can you find these?

There is a video I just put up. It is only the last 13 seconds of the unusual mating.

Please keep us posted! It would be neat if you could find some cross-bred babies! :-D

Also Bayucca, you are amazing and a fountain of information! Thank you for your continual contributions to PN!

Thank you again bayucca for taking the time to comment on this amazing spot. I appreciate it very much!

Very interesting "article" I was wondering this myself, bayucca

Brandon, I checked early this morning. The female Cecropia, one or two male Promethea and female promethea were gone. I hope I they laid their eggs on that tree. I will keep an eye out for caterpillars and cocoons.

Absolutely amazing! Quite the spectacle to see them together in this "Pairing!"

This is definitely one for the books! I would love to see what the outcome is of the mating. I am willing to bet that if any hatch and make it to adult stages they will be extraordinary!

WOW! Thanks bayucca! I am glad I was able to get some photos of this unusual mating.

Inter-genus and Inter-species mating in the wild usually do not succeed, at least not for more than a few generations and there is also only less than 1% of the eggs which have a normal outcome due to for example lack of growth factors or hormones. But there ARE hybrids also in nature, not only in breeding facilities. Specially in sphingidae and saturniidae (sic) it is reported (also in some butterfly families, meaning inter-family mating lycaenidae and zygaenidae are quite famous for that). To my knowledge the success (meaning looking at the result and further results, not just the copulation is recorded!!) of mismatch is depending on the similarity of the DNA, which is within the species quite similar (and there it might work successfully), but mostly not between different genus and certainly not between different families. Nature has some prevention mechanisms like different food plants (but that might also be a problem, if they have the same host plants, then it might happen most or in moths traps: What would you do if you have 5 males and 1 female of one genus and 5 females and 1 male form another genus in the same trap? Scarving? ;-)...) and different flying times, anatomic specialties (like Doberman and Chihuahua, however, here it would work, since it is only inter-race and not inter-species, they have the same DNA). It is not the goal of nature to produce mostly infertile hybrids, because energy and resources are too precious to waste for a "zero outcome". And: The whole story is much more complicate and complex to handle it within a few sentences.

Incredible!

awesome shot

It is time to lay eggs!

If you get a response, I'd be really curious to know so please update :)

I have no idea. I have sent a message to a amateur "expert". I also have the last 13 seconds of the mating on video. I have to make a u-tube account.

Awesome!

Great spotting! Can these two actually reproduce? I know many different species can but am not sure about these two.

A classic mismatch! Extraordinary spotting!