1964 ] ournal of the Lepidopterists' Socicty 3.5

THE MATING TIME OF

by GEORG PRONIN From an oId balcony of our house in Osanovo, Russia, one could see a large meadow which was densely covered with grass, clover, daisies, and sorrel. Among this vegetation were bunches of rosy wild carnations and blue-bell flowers. Farther away the meadow changed into an elder grove, with bunches of wild hops, raspberries, and flowering cherries ( padus). The old basswood garden was joined to the young groves at the other side of the old house. Close to this side of the wooden house was a young grove of trees. The dense branches of lilac and acacia were growing directly against the windows of the house. On the balcony a young boy sat motionless, looking very attentively at an old wire cylinder in which a big female was fastened. This female belonged to the northern race, qucrcifolia alnifolia, which has a dark violet shade over its brown ground color and is native in Moorom Woods of the government of Vladimir in Russia. Extending her heavy thick abdomen, the moth patiently waited for the males which were certainly flying around the house. The evening was going its way. The redness in the sky changed slowly into the bright summer night's twilight, as is common in the north. The night was silent; only the grating voice of the Com Crake was coming from the large spaces of wet meadows, and the com fields sent the biting cry of the quail. Suddenly a little shadow of a male moth was seen coming from the roof of the house. The boy moved too quickly, and the night visitor flew high up and disappeared. After that, although the young enthusiast sat near his moth in the wire cylinder evening after evening, nothing happened. Only one male was seen at the cage. These have no mouthparts and therefore can not take food. The only task which the adult males have is to find and fertilize females. Perhaps this female was not attractive to the males, but the boy could not believe that. Another female of this was bred from a large, gray caterpillar which had been found sitting on a low branch. When disturbed, it showed large dark blue hairy brushes near its head. The caterpillar made a hairy cocoon, changed into a pupa, and after nearly three weeks hatched into a robust G. qucrcifolia female. Evening after evcning, beginning as late as nine 0' clock, the young entomologist sat hour after hour waiting in vain for attracted males. Everything seemed all right, but something was wrong. As four days passed, the female began to lay her eggs and on the fifth day she died. N early twelve years later, in another part of the country, more to the 36 PRONIN; Mating times VoLl8; no.1

west in Luck, Wolhyn [now Lutsk, Volyn, RussiaJ the young entomolo­ gist was again sitting at a wire cylinder which enclosed another female of the C. quercitolia. A big fruit garden surrounded the observation spot. The wire cage was put on the top of an old wooden box which once served as a beehive. The observation had begun at eight o'clock and at 8:45 three males were attracted. Evening after evening the entomologist collected the males which were attracted from 8:45 for a period of only seven or eight minutes. After this very short time no more males were seen. The question was answered. The young boy had begun his observations in Osanovo too late in the evening, when the courtship flight period of the males had already ended. The males of the moth Philudoria potatoria are very similar to those of C. quercitolia. The young collector was very familiar with them in his old basswood garden, and had often placed a female of P. potatoria on a branch in the garden but never found a male there before nearly ten 0'clock. The boy had thought that the mating hours of C. quercitolia would also be late, but the analogy is not the proof. The mating hour of C. quercitolia is 8:45, and of P. potatoria 10:35. But we must not be too severe with the boy for his error. The old genial entomologist, Henri Fahre, also made such a mistake. He waited in vain for the coming of the male tritolii during the bright sunshine, guided only by the resemblance of the caterpillars of trifolii to those of L. quercus, which visits its female between two and four PM daily. The sexual flight of L. tritolii is at nine in the evening. We must distinguish the flying hours from the mating time, because they are not the same. For example, many hawk moths, which have tongues for sucking nectar, fly at twilight to feed but have their mating hours later, after feeding. The common European sphingid, populi, begins flying after 9 PM and the mating hours are after midnight. Perhaps another reason for this is that the young males thus have time to fly very far from the place of their birth and this makes mating with their sisters improbable. Here is a short table of mating hours observed for different moths:

THE MATING TIME OF MOTHS

Species Time Month Locality Hyalophom euryalus Bdv. 10:30 PM VI Shasta Co., Calif., USA pyri Schiff. 10:30 PM V Bosporus, Saturnia pavonia L. 2-4 PM V Munchen, Germany tau L. 11-12 AM V Bayerbrun, Germany Endromis versicolora L. 11-12 AM IV Vladimir, Russia rubi L. 4-6 PM VI Vladimir, Russia 1964 ] oumal of the Lepidopterists' Society 37

Lasiocampa quercus L. 2-4 PM VII Luck, Wolyn, Russia Schiff. 9 PM VIII Miinchen, Gennany Lasiocampa grandis Rougeuh 8:45 PM VIII Bosporus, Turkey dumi L. 11-12 AM Luck, Wolyn, Russia Lymantria dispar L. 11-12 AM VIII Luck, Wolyn, Russia Philrudoria potatoria L. 10:35 PM VII Luck, Wolyn, Russia alnifolia O. 8:45 PM Luck, Wolyn, Russia Epicnaptera americana Harris 9:30 PM VII MalYs Peak, Ore., USA Orgyia antiqua L. 10-12 AM VIII Vladimir, Russia Orgyia gonostigma F. 11-12 AM VII Luck, Wolyn, Russia L. 12:33 AM VII Luck, Wolyn, Russia ocellatus L. 11-12 AM VII Luck, Wolyn, Russia M imas tiliae L. 10:15 PM VI Vladimir, Russia 9:15 PM VI Kharkov, Russia 7:15 PM V Bosporus, Turkey Deilephila elpenor L. 9:45 PM VI Luck, Wolyn, Russia Sphinx liqustri L. 11:30 PM VI Miinchen, Germany Arctia caia L. 11 PM VII Luck, Wolyn, Russia Eriogaster rimicola Hbn. 10 PM VIII Luck, Wolyn, Russia elocata Esp. 8:15 PM IV Luck, Wolyn, Russia Psyche unicolor Hufn. 11-12 AM VII Praha, Czechoslovakia Fumea casta Pall. 6 PM; 4AM VII Luck,Wolyn, Russia Aegeria apiformis Cl. 11-12 AM VI Vladimir, Russia

Such a table must always have the locality, date, and thc time of day. The locality gives us the possibility of detennining the meridian correlation. An example of the importance of these data is the difference in mating times of M imas tiMae, which begins to fly to his female in North Vladimir at 10:15; in Kharkov at 9:15, and in Bosporus, Turkey, at 7:15 PM. This phenomenon may be connected with the beginning of dew condensation. An unusual mating time was observed in a pair of Smel'inthus kindermanni. An old male was stored in a semi-dark cellar for about 6 days until a female was hatched. When he was put into the box with her, they began to mate at once, at 2 PM in daylight. It may be significant that the pupae had been brought from southern , and the mating took place in Lodz in central . The mating time can be short, as observed in Lasiocampa grandis, whose caterpillar is similar to that of L. quercus. This species lives at Bosporus near Istanbul, Turkey, and I have reared it. One evening one of the big brown males came in through an open window and flew around the electric lamp. In my rearing box were two females. When 38 PRONIN: Mating times VoLl8: no.1

I took the box out into the garden, it was at once surrounded with a small swann of males. This was at 8:45 PM and lasted only 4 or 5 minutes; then the entire lot of males flew away. The mating time of euryalus, which I observed in Shasta County, California, is not short. The pupa of a female of this species had overwintered in her cocoon in an open wire cage at Hat Creek. The conditions were normal, and she hatched on June 5. I put her into a box with walls of tulle netting and took a seat at the beginning of twilight on the balcony of the Hat Creek Entomological Station. At almost 10 PM I could see one male after another flying continuously around the box. One male came very near to the box and after inquiry with his antennae he also flew away. Did the males know that the female was surrounded on every side by tissue? I could not tell. But to permit the female to mate without giving her the chance to escape I very carefully cut her wings so she could not fly, then placed her in a tall wide-mouthed jar, left it on the balcony, and went to sleep. The next morning I found the female mating with a very beautiful male which had come from the woods. On the previous evening the attractiveness of the female had been feeble in the first part of the night. This could be due to either of two reasons: the mating hours were nearcr to midnight, or the female was not absolutely ripe. Moths can mate only when the female wants to. I once tested the mating hours in a hybridization attempt. I placed many ripe females of Philudoria potatoria (formerly placed in Gastropacha) , very near to a female Gastropacha quercifolia. The males of potatoria, attracted by their females,wcre coming directly through the open windows from the woods, but the female G. quercifolia could not be aroused then at the hour of 10:45 P.M.; her mating hours are from 8:45 P.M. to sunset, as noted above. Often the ripening process is finished only on the second day of the female life. In such examples as and Saturnia pyri mating can occur only when the female is ready to attract males and pushes out her odoriferous organs. Also, the female normally attracts males only when she is unmated. One time I obtained a mating pair of Laothoe populi, but I could see that the male was too old and was worthless for fertilization. That night the female was still attractive to other males. In another experiment with this species, one male was given two females, one after the other. The copulation of L. populi lasts twenty hours. After two matings, this male was not accepted by a third female. In the mating process of L. populi, it was often observed that old females (of course not too old) have always attracted very big and robust males. 1964 Journal of the Lepidopterists' Society 39

Lernonia durni, a daylight flier, has as a rule the most frequent matings, because of its short adult life. It flies in Luck, Wolyn, Russia, after 8 October, when the nights are too cold for flight. The male hatches from the pupa in the early morning, flies during the day and evening, then hides in the grass and dies. Therefore, a young male which has been out of the pupa only half an hour is not able to fertilize an entire hatch of eggs at one mating. The supply must be increased in some way, and this is accomplished by more frequent mating during that one day. This species of Lernonia is very closely adapted to its normal surround­ ings. I once transported a female, which I had reared from a pupa, to an entomological tower standing in an area covered with young trees. I placed her on the floor, two meters above the ground. Very soon I saw several males flying wildly around beside the bottom of the tower. The males have perfectly feathered antennae which help find the females, yet they did not make contact with her this time. But suddenly I understood the trouble. In nature it is impossible for the female to reach a point two meters above the ground because of her feeble legs. As soon at I put the box on the soil surface, it was surrounded by males. There are very interesting kinds of Psychidae in which the females are wingless and must be found by their males. The females never leave their place of birth, a little bag made from short pieces of bark or narrow straws. One such psychid is Furnea casta, which is one of the smallest members of this family. The male has a wing spread of only 3 mm. Therefore the little insect is too feeble to fly to his female when the air, warmed by the sun, begins to rise from the soil surface, and must choose a time when the air is nearly motionless. This is only at 6 PM and at 4 AM . In order to determine the mating time of this species I kept a leaf, bearing the cocoon sack of a fcmale, pinned onto the window frame at the entomological station in Kiwerce Wood near Luck, Wolyn, so that I would have it before my eyes at all times. The evening mating times were very easily observed. However it was more difficult in the morning. Occasionally I was awakened in the early morning just b efore sunrise and could see at that time the mating flight. The intensity of the light seems to have no influence on the mating' time. In Arkhangelsk, far northern Russia, near the White Sea, I saw the mating of Melalopha curtula L. The night in May is absolutely bright, and it was very surprising to see in clear daylight what in middle Europe was always covered with mysterious darkness. Most species of do not have such definite differences in mating hours. The time in my observations is usually between one and three PM. 40 PRONIN: Mating times Vo1.l8: no.!

THE MATING TIME OF BUTTERFLIES

Species Time Month Locality Papilio multicaudatus Kirby 2-3 PM VII Shasta Co., Calif., USA Papilio machaon L. 1-2 PM VII Polesie, Wolyn, Russia Adelpha bredowii Geyer 2-3 PM VIII Shasta Co., Calif, USA Nymphalis antiopa L. 2-3 PM IV Luck, W olyn, Russia Nymphalis polychloros L. 2-3 PM IV Luck, Wolyn, Russia Nymphalis 10 L. 2-;3 PM IV Kharkov, Russia Poltygonia c-album L. 2-3 PM IV Luck, Wolyn, Russia Nymphalis urticae L. 2-3 PM IV Luck, Wolyn, Russia Vanessa atalanta L. 4:15 PM V Luck, Wolyn, Russia Vanessa cardtti L. 6 PM VII Luck and Krym, Russia

Thus, each species of or moth has its own definite mating time. By making these comparisons, we can use the mating time as a subsidiary factor in recognizing different local forms and subspecies. While most moths mate soon after hatching from the pupa, Nymphalis hutterflies mate after their winter hibernation. N. antiopa in central Europe hatches from the pupa in early July and does not mate until April of the following year, immediately after the first feeding. I once observed this process in Tooshiuer 'Wood, near Lodz, Russia. I was walking along a forest path on 11 April at about 2 PjVI and came to an old tree of Carpinus betulae with sap flowing from a small bark wound. On the next tree, sitting on the bark, was a mating pair of N. antiopa. I put the pair in a box very carefully and went further. When I came back to the place an hour later, great was my astonishment at seeing a second pair of this species on another tree trunk. In my entire life I had never found of this species mating in nature, and now this happened twice in only one hour. Some kinds of butterfly males are pugnacious during spring mating time. After he has chosen a little dirt hill on the edge of a forest path, Nymphalis xanthomelas Esp. is aggressive against a newcomer of any kind. When a foreign butterfly approaches the observation spot, the original occupant takes off and pursues savagely. Therefore the males of this species always have entirely shredded wings by the end of their mating season. In Golden Gate Park (San Francisco, California) male'S of the very common Vanessa carye hav~ also l' esprit combatif and fly after each other energetically. Butterflies often fly while actually mating. In this activity one mate is carried by the other. Here is a short table of my observations with reference to the sex which is the transporter. 1964 Journal of the Lepidopterists' Society 41

OBSERVATIONS OF BUTTERFLIES FLYING WHILE MATING Species Transporter Place Month crataegi L. female Europe VI Pieris rapae L. male Europe VI Pieris napi L. male Europe VI C olias hyale L. male Europe VII Papilio machaon L. female Poles ie, Russia VII Danal1S pltexippus L. female California, USA XII Adelpha bredowii Geyer female California, USA VIII Argynnis paphia L. female Europe VII M elanargia galathea L. female Europe VIII Erebia medusa Schiff. female Europe VII Pararge aegeria L. female Europe VII Aphantopus hyperantus L. female Europe VII M aniola jurtina L. female Europe VII Plebeius argus L. male Europe VII Polyommatus icarus Rott. male Europe VII M aculinea arion L. female Europe VIII The unusual mating flight of H emaris tityus L. (near the American diffinis Bdv.), the Clearwing Sphinx, is made during the brightest day­ light hours. The male and female fly while in copula, facing opposite directions. Therefore such a pair fly very, very slowly, because the speed of flight is only the difference between the speed of the female, which is the more powerful and robust, and that of the male. I give my cordial thanks to Mr. Robert Judd, philologist, Mr. Hugh B. Leech, Associate Curator of Insects at the California Academy of Sciences, and Mrs. Jeanne E. Remington, who helped to prepare this article for publication. [Mf. Pronin died of cancer on 28 October 1962, and the above article was assembled from a linguistically complicated draft he had submitted. C. L. RJ

A RECORD OF GLAUCOPSYCHE LYGDAMUS FROM MISSOURI According to Mr. P. S. Remington, no specimen of the silvery blue, Glaucopsyche lygdamus Doubleday, has ever been captured in Missouri. One may imagine my astonishment, then, when on 12 April 1963, while collecting in Meramec State Park near Sullivan, Missouri I found one of these butterflies flying by the roadside. I had been watching it for several minutes, but since I was paying more attention to a puddle group of more than fifty Er!fnnis and Celastrina individuals, I let it go, taking it for just another C. argioltus. However, once I started stalking 42 BLANCHARD: Syssphinx food VoLlS: nO.l it, its novelty was soon apparent, for alternating with brilliant blue upperside was sooty gray underside. It was only moderately active, staying by the roadside following the habits of the other puddle visitors. Its condition after capture was so nearly perfect that it must have emerged from the chrysalis just that morning. This rules out the pos­ sibility of it being a windblown stray, although it has been suggested that since the park is a camping spot and tourist attraction, it may have been casually introduced by travellers. Although this explanation at first seems rather far-fetched, the occurence of lygdamus there is in itself far-fetched, and thus, it is the only reasonable explanation besides the chance that it simply may have been overlooked previously. Knowing the number of collectors in my vicinity that are in the field at this time of year, the latter case is far from impossible, though. The most distinctive character of the specimen is the rather uniform slate-gray underside darkened slightly at the base of the wings. The postmedian band of spots is jet black surrounded by white rings. The spots on the forewing are slightly larger than those on the hindwing. Above, the specimen displays the characteristic bright silver blue of the males with a narrow black marginal band and white fringes. Wing­ span is exactly one inch.

C. J. KENNEDY, 942 Elmont Lane, Crestwood 26, Mo., U. S. A.

THE FOOD PLANTS OF SYSSPHINX HElLIGBRODTl (SA TURNIIDAE) IN The early stages of Syssphinx (Bouvierina ) heiligbrodti hubbardi (Dyar) have been described in a beautifully illustrated paper (Bull. so. Calif. acado sci 46: 72-77; 1947) , by Dr. John A. Comstock who reared it, ab ovo, on Mesquite. I reared the type race, S. heiligbrodti heiMgbrodti (Harvey), ab ova, in 1962 and found that the larvae accept equally well the following three plants: Prosopis glandulosa Torr. (Mesquite), Acacia famesiana (L.) Willd. (Huisache), and Acacia rigidula Ben-th. (Black Bush Acacia). In Texas S. heiligbrodti extends at least over the area south of a line going from Port Lavaca to Bastrop and from there to Del Rio. It is quite common in the southernmost part of its range, from YIay until October. Greasewood (Larrea divaricata Cav.) (Creosote Bush) has been re­ ported several times as being the food . Considering that S. heiligbrodti is rare or absent in western Texas where Greasewood is extremely abundant, this point should be checked.

ANDRE BLANCHARD, 3023 Underwood, Houston, Texas 7702.5, U. S. A.