Top: Hyalophora columbia gloveri female (Alberta);
Middle: male hybrid eastern columbia m x western gloveri f;
Bottom: Hyalophora columbia columbia male (Nova Scotia).
Together in Malay Falls, Nova Scotia, we (Derek Bridgehouse and Bill Oehlke) witnessed at dawn, one morning in late June, over fifty male Hylophora columbia columbia respond to calling, yet inaccessable female Hyalophora columbia gloveri from Alberta.
The caged females were on the ground, shaded by one of the two utility poles from which we had moored a rope to suspend a large white sheet behind a 175 watt clear mercury vapour bulb. The light shone down a powerline cut, bordered on both sides by Larix laricina trees. The nominate columbia males were apparently being drawn by the pheromone and were then being mesmerized by the light.
Derek allowed a male to access one of the females and reared the subsequent hybrids.
Derek has reared many of the local saturnids, has experimented with some Hyalophora hybrids, and maintains a worldwide collection.
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