Eacles oslari

[Goliathus]

I received some eggs of Eacles oslari this past week - does anyone here have any advice on how best to rear them?  The eggs are now rapidly darkening, and I expect them to hatch any day now.  Apart from oak, other suggested food plants include Liquidambar and Prunus.  I wonder if they might also accept Pecan (Carya), as this is known to be a host tree of the Eastern Imperial Moth (E. imperialis).

[Goliathus]

The eggs hatched this morning. Have offered the larvae Quercus, Liquidambar, and Carya; hopefully, they'll accept at least one of them. I cut the edges of the leaves, as I've heard that this can help prompt them to start eating.

[Goliathus]

The larvae have apparently accepted at least one or more of the plants I offered, but it's a bit hard to tell which, as of yet.  The sweetgum has definitely been chewed, and possibly the pecan too, but I suspect that they're mainly focusing on the oak.  I should have a much better idea of their preference within another day or two.  In any case, there's some tiny frass about the size of sand grains accumulating, so they're definitely eating.

[JKim]

I would have fed either one of Liquidambar or Pines to avoid confusion which one feed on which plant. I have an experience of keeping Eacles imperialis and E. imperialis nobillis, and I fed pines. Not much of difficulty in keeping. Have you kept moth or butterfly cats before? Ventilation is really important! and some moisture as well. I kept the container humid with wet paper towel.

[Goliathus]

On 8/9/2021 at 5:46 PM, JKim said:

I would have fed either one of Liquidambar or Pines to avoid confusion which one feed on which plant. I have an experience of keeping Eacles imperialis and E. imperialis nobillis, and I fed pines. Not much of difficulty in keeping. Have you kept moth or butterfly cats before? Ventilation is really important! and some moisture as well. I kept the container humid with wet paper towel.

It seems that Quercus oblongifolia and Quercus emoryi are the two of the most common host plants of E. oslari.  However, Liquidambar (sweetgum) is accepted by a rather wide variety of Saturniidae, including E. imperialis, so I felt it was worthwhile to try offering it to the oslari.  Carya (pecan) is also accepted by imperialis, so that was worth trying as well, since that is another tree that I have very easy access to.

Re your comment on humidity: interestingly, I have heard the opposite - that humidity is quite dangerous for most caterpillars, especially in the early instars.  I'm keeping the newly hatched oslari in a moderately well-ventilated container, but have not added any additional moisture other than what evaporates out of the food plants.

[JKim]

On 8/9/2021 at 7:19 PM, Goliathus said:

It seems that Quercus oblongifolia and Quercus emoryi are the two of the most common host plants of E. oslari.  However, Liquidambar (sweetgum) is accepted by a rather wide variety of Saturniidae, including E. imperialis, so I felt it was worthwhile to try offering it to the oslari.  Carya (pecan) is also accepted by imperialis, so that was worth trying as well, since that is another tree that I have very easy access to.

Re your comment on humidity: interestingly, I have heard the opposite - that humidity is quite dangerous for most caterpillars, especially in the early instars.  I'm keeping the newly hatched oslari in a moderately well-ventilated container, but have not added any additional moisture other than what evaporates out of the food plants.

I barely ever read about anything to do with moth cats. I'm not that into them, but I occasionally collect female moths while doing light trap. That's the only time when I "try" rear caterpillars. I may be wrong, but every time I only provided leaves off of the plants, caterpillars could not survive. That's when I learned that maybe water from food plant is not enough, especially when leaves are not still attached to plants. If I actually placed them on live plants, this probably has never been a problem to start with...😅