Keeping and breeding butterflies

Help solve the problem with wintering Cucullia pupae (Noctuidae, Lepidoptera)!
The problem is as follows. Pupae that are in natural conditions (on the balcony in a city apartment) do not enter diapause: in autumn, they show body contours, as if a butterfly is about to come out. If left in the heat, they slowly develop, but usually die (although once they turned out to be a normal butterfly). The caterpillars were taken in the Moscow region and the Orenburg region, so they should not be too warm on the balcony in September.
What should I do with them to prevent this phenomenon?

What about the photoperiod?

What about the photoperiod?

I didn't do anything on purpose: we were standing on the balcony, and that was it. Only covered it from the rain. Left in the heat for the winter specifically did not highlight. Maybe that's the truth of the matter. Although it is doubtful: they pupate either in the soil or above the soil itself (in captivity-at the bottom of the cage or burrow into the substrate that I put them for this purpose). And they have a cocoon... In general, it is hard to believe that they "see" the light at all

They must see something. And the role of photoperiod in the regulation of diapause is a textbook thing. Especially for polyvoltine species. By the way, the Orenburg region may have a day/night ratio failure (if the latitudes are very different, which can be checked on the map).

As for the textbook - I thought that dependence on photoperiod exists only in life forms that are in the light, openly. And those who are in the soil or in grass felt, i.e. in the dark-they don't care. Well, now I will know that this is not so.
For a specific case:
1.Species (the problem exists with a whole group of species) are monovoltaic. That's why you need a diapause. With polyvoltine I still have (ugh-ugh) everything is easier: in the living room they dress up in late autumn, apparently, they have enough "illumination" from the chandelier.
2. The difference in latitude between Moscow and Orenburg is slightly larger than between St. Petersburg and Moscow. Longitude - +2 hours. I don't think that the caterpillars have such an acclimation, especially since the same thing happens with the caterpillars of the same group taken in the Moscow region.
In general, the most incomprehensible thing about this is that the failure occurs in the fall, when they seem to be still "in nature "(on the street), and not in artificial conditions of a closed room. Or maybe there isn't a crash? Maybe they should be sent to spend the winter right now, in the process of development? Butterflies in nature fly out in May-June.

I have such a question, I was breeding a swallowtail from egg to imago, noticed the moment when the butterfly laid the egg, and brought the whole plant home.
It was successful.
The second time I decided to conduct an experiment, and transplanted an egg, cutting it off with a small piece of the main plant leaf( I don't know the name) on dill. As a result, the egg did not develop, it became moldy, although the parameters were the same.
What did I do wrong? Maybe it was necessary to completely remove the egg from the plant tissue, and put it in a new place?

Helene: "Pupae found in natural conditions (on the balcony in a city apartment)"

That's where the problem seems to be, since the balcony is not a very natural environment. The balcony is always warmer than "in nature". IR radiation from a heated house is huge, it warms everything that lies nearby. And the warmest part of the balcony in winter is the slabs/walls and, oddly enough, the floor. The stove, which is the floor, is warmed by the heat of the room, since part of the stove is there. For natural wintering, something like a summer house is better.

I have such a question, I was breeding a swallowtail from egg to imago, noticed the moment when the butterfly laid the egg, and brought the whole plant home.
It was successful.
The second time I decided to conduct an experiment, and transplanted an egg, cutting it off with a small piece of the main plant leaf( I don't know the name) on dill. As a result, the egg did not develop, it became moldy, although the parameters were the same.
What did I do wrong? Maybe it was necessary to completely remove the egg from the plant tissue, and put it in a new place?

It is difficult to say with certainty what happened, since we are talking about one egg. Most likely, it was just a defective egg - there is a natural waste in nature at all stages of development. If we assume that the egg was normal, then I can offer the following versions:
1. By ripping off a small piece of plant leaf and attaching it to the dill, you have somehow damaged the egg
2. More likely: excessive humidity in the garden with dill
And in fact, you absolutely shouldn't have transplanted an egg to dill. It doesn't eat! The egg is best placed on the substrate on which it was found (in this case, on the leaf of a forage plant). It is not necessary to moisten the cage or put juicy grass there (at least if it is a swallowtail). And when the caterpillars of the first age appear (the main thing is not to miss the moment!), put them in the dill cage. And another thing: the swallowtail is an unpretentious creature, loves dill, so you can easily transfer caterpillars of any age to dill.

Helene: "Pupae found in natural conditions (on the balcony in a city apartment)"

That's where the problem seems to be, since the balcony is not a very natural environment. The balcony is always warmer than "in nature". IR radiation from a heated house is huge, it warms everything that lies nearby. And the warmest part of the balcony in winter is the slabs/walls and, oddly enough, the floor. The stove, which is the floor, is warmed by the heat of the room, since part of the stove is there. For natural wintering, something like a summer house is better.

The dacha is better, but I don't have one. Therefore, in winter, the pupae are kept in the refrigerator. I keep the humidity up by putting sphagnum moss in the cage. The fact that the balcony is heated from the house - if it was heated better, then we could leave them there, of course, European winters, "rotten-slushy", but it can sometimes easily hit -20, especially at night. And for wintering preimaginals, this is Kirdyk, even for natives of those regions where the winter is harsh. In nature, they are covered with a thick layer of snow, the bottom is not a concrete floor, but the ground... So the refrigerator is safer.
And in September-well, how much will the balcony warm up there? Well, by a few degrees, so autumn itself is unstable in different years-it is colder, then warmer. In any case, for preparing for diapause +15 on the balcony is better than summer +20 plus in the apartment. And monovoltaic insects should not lose their diapause while it is warm in nature...

The egg could be defective, but it is very unlikely, since the embryo development was noticeable for some time, up to darkening. The humidity was the same as in the previous case, about 80%.
I wanted to transplant it to compare how the type of food plant affects the development of the caterpillar, it was just interesting. all conditions were the same as with the original plant. Namely, I wanted to transplant the egg, because I didn't know if the caterpillar, which had already fed on one species, would then feed on another. And there was an opportunity to miss the moment of hatching.
I am now even interested to know any data on the development of eggs on dying plant tissues.

As for wintering pupae, then at the expense of shelter with a thick layer of snow and wintering in the litter, snow and litter will not stop -20. It protects you from wind and temperature changes, but it doesn't keep you warm. This is if a warm-blooded animal, then yes, around due to thermal insulation and lack of blowing in the snow, the temperature will be up to 0C and slightly higher. Pupae freeze, and nothing is done to them, as long as the freezing and thawing is slow.
And at the expense of:
"Maybe they should be sent to winter right there, in the process of development"
if in nature in the process of development they will be caught by frost, then definitely kirdyk. And the balcony "warms" in September. You also take into account the fact that the soil is being cooled in the fall at night, the balcony is also high, it is always warmer there than on the soil. In general, living things on the balcony are not the same as living things on the ground in nature. Believe me, I have many people who do not live and did not live on the balcony. And the impact is noticeable.

Guest: As for wintering pupae, then at the expense of shelter with a thick layer of snow and wintering in the litter, snow and litter will not stop -20. It protects you from wind and temperature changes, but it doesn't keep you warm.

Snow, of course, does not warm up, but it VERY much affects the temperature - Under a thick layer of snow it will be about zero when above the snow - minus 20.

Helene'e:

I'll try to find out from a butterfly specialist. If only about the diapause of bedbugs, then to me!

[can't it be that their abstract imago is diapausing? Then they should be left to cool (chilling), without which the diapause ends very badly - - - everything looks like how you write]

Helene'e:

I'll try to find out from a butterfly specialist. If only about the diapause of bedbugs, then to me!

[can't it be that their abstract imago is diapausing? Then it is they who should be left to cool (chilling), without which the diapause ends very badly - - - everything is similar to how you write]

Sorry for my terminology ignorance, but this is really the first time I've heard it... what is abstract imago? And can you go into more detail about what is similar to my case? Th-it seems to me that this is "hot":)

I am now even interested to know any data on the development of eggs on dying plant tissues.

Believe me, I have many people who do not live and did not live on the balcony.

Sorry, on the first message I thought that the question was from the teapot (a single egg, swallowtail and all that) If you have a lot of breeding experience-then it's a completely different matter, you could not either kill the egg when transplanting, or waterlog it in the cage.
About worms. I can not boast of much experience in this business, because I am an optional breeder, I take preimaginal only when it is important to get an imago for further determination, etc. I understand that the conditions that I can provide them are far from ideal, but so far everything seems to be fine (if someone died, then in the winter in in the refrigerator because I didn't keep track of the humidity, and if in the summer, then from riders and infections).
By the way, the first thing I was advised to do with cucullia is a person who is engaged in breeding constantly and professionally: you're the one who has a lot of waste - just take more caterpillars!

De I don't have much experience, but of course I try to do everything so as not to damage the eggs when transporting them home and when handling them at home. I bred macroglossum, swallowtail, and some other species from the egg, and so that the egg did not hatch at home - for the first time. Although in the control areas in nature, the mortality rate is huge, although I do not know at what stage, but most of the caterpillars of macroglossums and swallowtails do not reach the second age. But as for the parasites, this year there were surprisingly few of them, how many caterpillars I dragged - I got butterflies or pupae in diapause from all sides.

Musolin:
"Under a thick layer of snow, it will be near zero when it is minus 20 above the snow. "
I wonder where the firewood comes from?
You can try it in severe frosts, when naturally the thermal inertia of the surface layer will be overcome, the gas will scrape the snow and accumulate in the ground. And there-permafrost.
I remember that after the long February-March frosts, it was necessary to collect land urgently, so the snow came off, the surface layer thawed, and the permafrost remained deeper than 5 cm for another week, it was impossible to dig.

Sorry for my terminology ignorance, but this is really the first time I've heard it... what is abstract imago? And can you go into more detail about what is similar to my case? Th-it seems to me that this is "hot":)

Abstract imago is an almost fully formed imago in a cocoon. This is how the scoop Orthosia stabilis and, if I'm not mistaken, some golden-eyes hibernate. There are also pharact larvae - fully formed larvae in the egg. This is how the unpaired ( and willow volnyanka?) overwinters.

If your species also overwinter at the stage of compact imago, then in the fall an imago should form in the pupa. But to get out, you need to be exposed to a low temperature. If it is not present, then the output is warm (diapause termination) will be unsynchronized and %% will be low.

About Orthosia stabilis-from the book:
AH Saulich, TA Volkovich Ecology of insect photoperiodism. SPB 2004.

  
Musolin:
"Under a thick layer of snow, it will be near zero when it is minus 20 above the snow. "
I wonder where the firewood comes from?
You can try it in severe frosts, when naturally the thermal inertia of the surface layer will be overcome, the gas will scrape the snow and accumulate in the ground. And there-permafrost.
I remember that after the long February-March frosts, it was necessary to collect land urgently, so the snow came off, the surface layer thawed, and the permafrost remained deeper than 5 cm for another week, it was impossible to dig.

I don't know what, I look it up in smart books. I did the same yesterday to make sure that I answered correctly. Here is a graph from
Leather SR et al. The Ecology of Insect Overwintering. Cambr. 1993
-- graph about Ontario. Pace. in March, at the level of 150 cm - above the snow-minus 30C, under the snow - minus 3C. The snow thickness at this time is under 40 cm.

I look at the chart about Alaska-January - above the snow to minus 35, under the snow - about minus 10.

Snow is a very powerful heat insulator. 5cm, of course, will not give much, but 20-a lot.

It is better to determine the temperature not with a shovel, but with a thermometer.

[by the way, I once discussed the temperature under the snow with a graduate student at the Low Temperature Institute in Sapporo.] I don't remember the details, but if you're very interested, I can ask him.

Dmitry.

It all depends on the type.Some people need a temperature of -30 or even lower for full development!

No, still minus 30 is too much. Insects in diapause CAN tolerate very low temperatures, but optimal wintering temperatures (diapause) are usually near zero.

As an example, a picture from
Bale JS, Masters GJ, Hodkinson ID et al. (2002) Herbivory in global climate change research: direct effects of rising temperature on insect herbivores. Global Change Biology, 8, 1–16.

(a source image from: Danilevsky A. S. Photoperiodism and seasonal development of insects. l.: LSU Publishing House. 1961. 244s.)

Dmitry.

Pictures:
  1007.jpg — (36.1к) 17.09.2005 — 24.09.2005

Musolin
About the temperature under the snow, you gave absolutely correct data. Naturally, the temperature will be lower under the snow. But not around 0C, as you said above, but depending on certain circumstances, it is different. And due to what the temperature under the snow is higher-this is really interesting, two factors have a big impact here-the residual heat of the earth and the sunlight penetrating under the snow. And here a lot depends on how the snow fell, whether there was a frost before that, or whether the snow fell before the cold snap, at 0C, and then the frost hit.
And at the expense of the shovel, so I went out not to measure the temperature, but to collect land

Thank you for the interesting data on wintering!

Musolin
About the temperature under the snow, you gave absolutely correct data. Naturally, the temperature will be lower under the snow.

it will be higher under the snow - it will be warmer there!

Musolin
But not about 0C, as you said above, and depending on certain circumstances is different.

it is different, but in the middle zone it is still about 0C if there is a lot of snow.

Musolin
And due to what the temperature under the snow is higher-this is really interesting, two factors have a big impact here-the residual heat of the earth and the sunlight penetrating under the snow.

The first is true, but I doubt very much that sunlight physically penetrates the snow...

Well, if this winter we will have at least 20 cm of snow, which I very much doubt, I will measure! Temperature and illumination, photosensor in the snow, thermal sensor buried in the surface layer.

"it will be higher under the snow - it will be warmer there! "
I'm sorry, I got it all mixed up
In general, if on the topic, then I found a lot of gold-eyes, pupae,and other wintering insects in practically unprotected places. Both from temperature changes, and even from light drafts! And nothing, they spend the winter, although sometimes we have two or three days -20 lasts. Yes, and in nature it is not always first snow, then frost, it happens just as it sits down, then everything that winters close to the top freezes in a straight line. And if it rained before that... So it only remains to wonder how water crystals do not grow in the cells there. In general, it's a pity, the time has already passed, it was possible to collect caterpillars, and experiment with wintering.

Or maybe the balcony is too bright and the pupa perceives this light as a continuation of the day and therefore does not want to enter diapause?

  
And can you go into more detail about what is similar to my case? Th-it seems to me that this is "hot":)

Helene, I received an answer from Aidi Khamatovna Saulich (St. Petersburg University, major specialist). on ecology of the diapause of insects, including butterflies):
Of course, first of all, you need to know what specific species we are talking about (Cuculiinae is one of the largest subfamilies). Secondly, wintering can be in a state of compact imago. Wintering in noctuids in the imaginal stage is rare, but it also happens. In general, it is best to contact the author and invite him to visit us to investigate his object experimentally. It is dangerous to give advice without knowing the specific type and conditions of detention. If the material was kept in natural conditions without violating these conditions, then the wintering stage should be formed normally, otherwise, how is wintering without diapause possible in the Orenburg or Moscow region? In general, I wonder who does this work?

---

So if you want, write to me at musolin@gmail.com and I will forward your letter to Aida Khamatovna - it should be easier than via mol. biol.

I realized that cold resistance and wintering temperature are different things.But here, interestingly-Golden
-tailed Caterpillars in winter tolerate temperatures up to -30,but their chlorine resistance and its lower threshold(-40) decrease with unfavorable nutrition before wintering(understandable).In autumn, before cold laying, caterpillars, regardless of geographical origin, are equally tolerant of cold weather. After exposure to negative temperatures in the north.the cold tolerance and survival rate of caterpillars increases significantly more than in southern populations.With the termination of the diapause, the resistance to cold evens out.

I didn't catch the question... It seems to me that all this is quite logical and"eco-friendly". I must admit that some authors believe that there is no geographical variability in cold resistance - this seems strange to me...

In general, if on the topic, then I found a lot of gold-eyes, pupae,and other wintering insects in practically unprotected places. Both from temperature changes, and even from light drafts! And nothing, they spend the winter, although sometimes we have two or three days -20 lasts. Yes, and in nature it is not always first snow, then frost, it happens just as it sits down, then everything that winters close to the top freezes in a straight line. And if it rained before that... So it only remains to wonder how water crystals do not grow in the cells there. In general, it's a pity, the time has already passed, it was possible to collect caterpillars, and experiment with wintering.

this is not the last fall!

Water crystals do not grow, because insects have several strategies for experiencing cold weather. One of them is getting rid of free water before wintering - replacing it with other compounds with a lower crystallization point. After all, insects are not pure water, but complex solutions. But there are species that can freeze through.

In general, the ecology of wintering insects is a very interesting topic! And it can be studied, including-in the master's or graduate school in St. Petersburg (unobtrusive advertising ).

I have already mentioned the book "Ecology of insect photoperiodism" - - - there is a lot of information on wintering and diapause. If anyone is interested, again, write to me - maybe it can still be purchased in St. Petersburg.

Or maybe the balcony is too bright and the pupa perceives this light as a continuation of the day and therefore does not want to enter diapause?

yes, this is also a likely factor. Where and how this species winters in nature If in the litter, and on the balcony it was in the light, then this may be the reason.

Musolin
About the book, and there is data on the amounts of ef. temperatures at least for some types of insects, and in general, where can I find out the lower developmental thresholds and SET for butterflies, wasps and other insects?

By the way, I now have a pupa of some scoops in my room (I fed the caterpillar) and a pupa of a milkweed hawk moth. It lies at 28C. I will try to conduct an experiment, whether they will hatch without diapause. The scoop has been lying there for the third month, and it's still alive.

  
Of course, first of all, you need to know what specific species we are talking about (Cuculiinae is one of the largest subfamilies).

Cucullia verbasci group. This is my case personally, but my friends said that they also had it with other cucullias, but I don't remember which ones exactly now. In general, the phenomenon, apparently, is not uncommon

 
Secondly, wintering can be in a state of compact imago.

It is very likely that this is the case. I even assumed something like this (as I said here - that there is no failure), I just wasn't sure that it happens.

 
In general, I wonder who does this work?

Not me. For me, removing butterflies from caterpillars is not an end, but a means. But I have a friend in Moscow who has a lot of practical experience in breeding (although he did not write independent scientific papers - the Mgushniki guys had a complex even in their small childhood ) And there is also a Belgian friend who is now living in France. Here he seems to be seriously engaged in the primaginal scoop, although he conducts more field environmental research than laboratory experiments. In principle, the topic is interesting, and you can do it by joining forces.

 
So if you want, write to me at musolin@gmail.com and I will forward your letter to Aida Khamatovna - it should be easier than via mol. biol.

Accepted. But it is better to wait a little while, so that the post-expedition turnover resolves. The topic is voluminous and serious.

Thank you for your help!

Musolin
About the book, and there is data on the amounts of ef. temperatures at least for some types of insects, and in general, where can I find out the lower developmental thresholds and SET for butterflies, wasps and other insects?

By the way, I now have a pupa of some scoops in my room (I fed the caterpillar) and a pupa of a milkweed hawk moth. It lies at 28C. I will try to conduct an experiment, whether they will hatch without diapause. The scoop has been lying there for the third month, and it's still alive.

Specifically in this book-about SET and thresholds a little information. More - in:

Saulic AH. Seasonal development of insects and their dispersal possibilities. St. Petersburg State University. 1999. -- maybe you can also get it from the author.

In general, such info is usually scattered in articles dedicated to certain types, unfortunately. From reviews and analysis of znvyu:

Honek A, Kocourek F (1990) Temperature and development time in insects: a general relationship between thermal constants. Zoologische Jahrbücher. Abteilung für Systematik, Ökologie und Geographie der Tiere, 117, 401–439.

Kiritani, K. 1987. The low temperature threshold temperature and the thermal constant in insects, mites and nematods in Japan. Miscellaneous publications of the Natl. Inst. of Agro-Environmental Sciences (Tsukuba, Japan). 21: 1-72.

I copy a paragraph from our article with AH Saulich, where we quote the 2nd work:

K. Kiritani (1997) gives the average values of the temperature threshold of development (T0, the minimum temperature at which growth and active development occurs) for several orders of insects. According to these data, the T0 of hemiptera (12.2+-2.3 °C) exceeds the T0 of all other orders included in the analysis, for example, diptera (7.8+-3.0 °C), hymenoptera (9.2+-3.0 °C), lepidoptera (10.4+-2.4 °C) and coleoptera (10.4+-3.0 °C). However, even among bedbugs there are species with a rather low developmental threshold, for example, the T0 of larval development of the horsefly Calocoris norvegicus was only 6.4 °C (Purcell and Welter, 1990). T0 can vary between populations and at different stages of development, and between sexes within the same population. For example, the T0 of eggs (14.9 °C) in the hemispherical scutellum Megacopta punctissima was higher than the T0 of I-age larvae (12.5 °C in females and 13.2 °C in males) and the T0 of V-age larvae (6.8 °C in females and 8.6 °C in males; Tayutivutikul and Yano, 1990). In Graphosoma lineatum, the T0 of eggs (14.9 °C) was lower than the T0 of larvae (17.3 °C, all ages) and the T0 of maturation of females (23.4 °C; Musolin and Saulich, 1996).
Hemiptera, although they do not have a pupal stage, but many species develop slowly and must accumulate a sufficiently large sum of effective temperatures – EET) - on average 414.6+-198.0 gr. - days. For comparison, the SET of diptera is 290.8+-111.8 gr. - days, hymenoptera-213.7+-91.5 gr.-days, lepidoptera – 463.3+-153.5 gr.-days, and coleoptera-540.8+-461.6 gr. - days (Kiritani, 1997).

You can probably look at the thresholds of butterfly development:
Danilevsky A. S. Photoperiodism and seasonal development of insects. l.: LSU Publishing House, 1961, 244 p.

Thresholds of development in ants are taken out by VE Kipyatkov in the same St. Petersburg State University - maybe he can tell something from other areas-I can give his coordinates - or look at the department's website - http://www.bio.pu.ru/koi/entomol/russian1.htm

No, still minus 30 is too much. Insects in diapause CAN tolerate very low temperatures, but optimal wintering temperatures (diapause) are usually near zero.

This is where as. For example, in high altitudes or regions with a sharply continental climate, it is both very cold and very dry in winter. For the species of the corresponding ecosystems, -30 may be quite the optimal temperature for wintering. But in such places there is still such a fen: there are few microbes there, they do not withstand such extreme weather. Therefore, insects brought from there will die in diapause simply from infection. The breeders tried all sorts of aseptic and antiseptic measures, but it was useless. Only artificially interrupting the diapause is a risky method, but at least there is some chance...
As for the fact that insects can tolerate something if life forces them, I can share a recent observation. In fact, our winter temperatures always jump from -5 (at night -10) to +5, snow cover is established in the beginning-middle (sometimes even at the end) of December, during the winter snow falls in quite large quantities, but during thaws it melts, so the average snow cover is the same 20 centimeters (well, maybe 30), which were given by Sealor for Kharkiv. In the forest, of course, the snow cover is thicker: it melts less, and the wind blows up there. And in the metropolis - all winter "zebra landscape" with thawed snow. In addition, almost every year there is a short-term (for several days) cold snap to -20-25 at night, but this is in the middle of winter, with snow.
So, a few years ago we had some kind of crazy winter, when not only was a record set for 50 years (-36 recorded! ), so even super frost shundarakhnul in December, WITHOUT SNOW! And it lasted unrealistically long, at least a month. There was a storm warning on the radio every day To be honest, I thought it would be a disaster for the fauna, and at least the southern species wouldn't recover any time soon. But no - of course, there was a recession, a lot of people froze, but not a single species fell out, and the next year everything became normal. So there is a safety margin in nature - after all, faunas have experienced many cataclysms in their history...

Musolin
Thank You! Unfortunately, I don't speak English, and I haven't seen any literature in Russian. I'm a weather monitor. and I wrote a program for organizing data, including SET can be considered. It will be necessary to carefully monitor the development of insects for the next season.
I would like to get the books "Seasonal development of insects and their dispersal possibilities" and "Photoperiodism and seasonal development of insects". And how can you buy it?

And of course there is resistance to freezing. In general, we have such a climatic zone that there is little snowfall, and severe frost (up to-20C) alternates with sharp warming against the background of often not only the absence of snow, but also sometimes frost gets stronger at night after rain at +5C!

Many wintering species have a certain temperature limit - somewhere around +5 (average daily temperature); if such an intense thaw lasts long enough, the diapause will be interrupted. Last year we had a thaw up to +7 in the daytime for about a month, the snow completely disappeared. That's when I found out about this very border of +5 degrees. Everyone was waiting: will the early spring motley ones fly or not? But it didn't happen, and the border wasn't crossed. Then (in February) it gradually got colder, the snow fell again and in huge quantities, the frost lasted even in March. As a result, an ultra - late, prolonged spring, a month's delay in the phenophase, and the thaw did not affect all this in any way, as if it had never happened.

This post was edited by Helene - 10/04/2005 14: 33

Well, I do not know, it seems to me that after all you have a little different. But I don't even know approximately how to "otherwise", it's also interesting. If you want, I can send you graphs of my many years of temperature observations, take a look and tell me, one way or another?
But I looked, so that more than +5C lasted more than 3-4 days in winter - like nebylo this. And on the balcony, so my balcony is rarely below zero, although it is not glazed. South side+warming up from the house+wind protection= something grows in the ground of the flower garden all winter and bees almost do not gather in the club. So I "from my bell tower" and advised not to keep it on the balcony.
And last year you were warm thanks to the unprecedented intensity of heat pumping by cyclones from the Atlantic. This event was very interesting. but by February, the vash severny AD center also looked in on us, after +3 +7 and rain like -20 sat down for a week on the bare ground! Very much affected the insects, the eye was noticeably reduced in number and other influences!

Well, of course, there is a lot of unnecessary "background" information in folk signs, but nevertheless they still reflect life in more stable climatic conditions.
Now all the processes have become more contrasting. What is worth only the formation of tropical cyclones, which in recent years have been spinning clearly more than normal. This year it may well be .

By the way, I certainly look at the weather forecasts that are on the met. the sites are laid out, but it is much more reliable to look at the current data from satellites and predict for yourself what is expected specifically for your area. It is very useful for planning hikes in the countryside and for other weather-dependent tasks.
Here are some links:
AM data on temperature and pressure on the AT850, calculated for 6 days.
http://www.wetterzentrale.de/pics/avnpanel1.html
Probability of thunderstorms
http://www.meteocenter.net/maps/at212_9.htm
Map of pressure gradients and fronts
http://217.160.75.104/wz/pics/bracka.gif
Map of the planet's surface area and temperature
http://www.ssec.wisc.edu/data/comp/latest_cmoll.gif
I use it, and in combination with local observations, you can get a good orientation in the ins. the environment.

Musolin
Books "Seasonal development of insects and the possibilities of their dispersal" and "Photoperiodism and seasonal development of insects" I would like to get. And how can you buy it?

Write to me at musolin@gmail.com and I'll give you the author's email - I can't send it myself, unfortunately - not in St. Petersburg today...

I have been growing
Podaliris for 2 years now: after collecting 150 caterpillars in the summer, I got 67 butterflies, the rest died
from the epidemic. I don't know how to get butterflies to debug their eggs, it seems that there is food
and water, and a caterpillar feed plant , and there is plenty of space. And they don
't want to mate, either.Swallowtails have the same problem.
Please give me some advice.
chelpanov_s@list.ru

Standard conditions for all tracks? I mean the following: a small box with a caterpillar, some grass on which it was found, which should be placed as it is eaten. And if the caterpillar was not found on the grass?To find out what to feed it, you need to determine the species?

So... Well, where should I start? Probably with answers to questions. I'll try to prepare a lecture for Monday
1. Essno, for different widows and conditions are different.
2. The box is no good: the caterpillar needs light. Ideally, you need a cage with one wall of mesh for ventilation. But in principle, a wide-necked glass jar, tightened on top with gauze, is also suitable. The size is not such that the caterpillar just fits, but such that there is a place to crawl
3. The caterpillar should be taken together with the grass on which it was sitting (or with the leaves of a tree or shrub), especially if the species is unknown. And continue to give the same food. Many caterpillars are monophages or oligophages. And there is also such an unpleasant thing as imprinting a forage plant.
4. It is very important that the food is fresh. Dried" grass " can disrupt development, and rotten caterpillar can get sick and die.
5. If the caterpillar does not eat anything and at the same time runs briskly around the cage, but was caught on the road or on the trunk of a tree-it is quite possible that it is ready for pupation and is looking for a place. If the species is unknown, you can put some kind of substrate on the bottom of the cage (in case it pupates in the ground). And put a branched branch-some people need a fork.
Well all the first things