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Green Hawk Moth (Part 1)

Pergesa acteus

Description:

Sphingidae; Macroglossinae; Macroglossini; Pergesa; Pergesa Acteus (Cramer, 1779). When I started collecting Hawk Moth eggs, I had no way of knowing what species they were. I brought them into our terrace where I placed all of them in a plastic bucket with a plentiful supply of leaves from the host plant. Tiny holes were drilled in the lid to allow some air circulation to take place, without allowing any hatchlings to escape. Well, you can imagine how this quickly developed into a a busy moth rearing venture, with buckets everywhere, but my wife showed great tolerance and allowed me to continue and even helped when she had time. So that was the set-up and now I can describe the developments, step by step. Pic #1. Shows a single egg. The scale on the ruler is in millimetres. So, you can see how small it is. The first eggs hatched out in two or three days. It wasn't important to record the times of hatching, because I had no idea how long the eggs had been incubating before I rescued them from the verge outside. Pic #2. Shows a 1st. instar larva, but I could only guess at the species at this point. Pic #3. is a 2nd. Instar larva. Now I could see that I probably had a Pergesa acteus moth because of the single large eye spot followed by five or six smaller ones along each side (and which gradually faded away towards the posterior). Now, I just have to wait for each moult and check the markings on each new instar as I go along. Timing the progression from one instar to the next was impossible (in my inexperienced and chaotic state) because I had not planned my venture properly. I had been taking larvae out of buckets to measure and photograph them and then returning them into buckets which I thought contained larvae at similar stages of development. It was total chaos, but I continued so that I might learn and do better next time. Pic #4 is a 3rd. Instar and now I am sure of the species and they are growing bigger, eating more and keeping me busy cleaning out quantities of frass and catering for their ever-growing demand for fresh leaves. Pic #5 is a 4th. Instar and now they are getting bigger and I am wondering if I have taken on more than I can handle. Then comes Pic #6 Shows a 5th. Instar. I can't even manage to measure this monster. There were several, all totally wild and would not stay still for a moment. They climbed over each other and pushed each other out of the way to get to the best leaves first. I am now out of space on the page for more pictures and will continue in my next spotting. https://www.projectnoah.org/spottings/17...

Habitat:

The Pergesa acteus egg shown in my first picture was collected from the roadside grass verge outside of our front wall. It was on the underside of a leaf of Corazon de Maria (Caladium bicolor).

Notes:

I am very interested in butterflies and moths and never cease to wonder at the amazing, almost magical transformations they go through in their development. The grass verge in front of the houses here had always been considered (in the past) to be the responsibility of the the house owners. Some kept it tidy and others, not so much. So the local government, a few years back, stepped in and sent out teams of workers with petrol-engine brush cutters. They do a good job of keeping the grass short and reducing the weeds, but they cut absolutely everything, including many Corazon de Maria, the main local host plant for many species of Hawk Moths. I decided to try and help to bolster and maintain the local population of these moths by having a go at rearing them in captivity and releasing them into the wild. The purpose of this spotting is to outline, in general terms, how these moths develop. I cant fit a sufficient number of photos into one spotting. So, I have taken the liberty of dividing it into two parts.

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John B.
Spotted by
John B.

Palauig, Central Luzon, Philippines

Spotted on Aug 13, 2018
Submitted on Aug 19, 2022

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