Moth from Langkawi for ID

[Cruiser]

Shot these two moths on the cable car hill top station of Langkawi few days back with D70 & kit-lens.

[Commander]

Nice colours...

At least I know that these are from the Hawk Moth family.

[Elbowed Pierrot]

nice skid marks on the #2

[janp]

The upper one is Ambulyx moorei, the lower one is Hippotion rosetta. Both species are very common and widespread species of the Sphingidae family.

[Common Mime]

Another moth expert.

Thanks janp, and welcome aboard.



Regards
CM

[Cruiser]

Thx janp and welcome onboard. You seem to be in the buiness of butts trading(?) could you tell us a little bit more about yourself

[janp]

Thx janp and welcome onboard. You seem to be in the buiness of butts trading(?) could you tell us a little bit more about yourself

Thanks 4 the welcomes! Just joined recently as I by chance stumbled over this forum during an internet search.

I'm from Denmark and have lived in Palawan since 1994. I started my interest in butts at the age of 10 (1979), in Denmark, and collected and reared butts and moths in places like Denmark, Swedish Lappland (Arctic region), southern Spain, the Atlantic islands of Madeira and the Canaries during my teenage years.

During my teenage years I became especially fond of the butt fauna of the Indian Subcontinent and central and east Asia and have collected and rearing on prolonged trips to India and Pakistan. In Kerala State, southern India, I was once fortunate enough to have the opportunity to rear the wonderful Western Ghats birdwing - Troides minos. I am however especially fond of the Himalayan butterfly fauna - most particularly that of Kashmir and northern Pakistan!

I have always been keenly interested in butterflies. However, with Trig Treadaway’s emphasis on Philippine moth research during 1995-1997, I spent quite a lot of nights light trapping in central Palawan and quite obviously learned a few things about moths. So the moth thing is just a "passtime" of mine….

With my wishes of making a living out of commercial butterfly farming in Palawan, my interest in butterflies seriously turned towards studying butterflies and their host plant relationships. I’ve reared a good deal of Palawan’s butterflies over the years and keep on stumbling over new host plants nearly each time I go on a field trip. The technique of discovering host plants is really simple....

Collecting and farming permit renewals in Palawan these days have become even more of a headache than previously. Export permits also proved to be a great problem already at an early stage. Even a simple sideline business like trading host plant seeds turned sour the last couple of years as even registered letters with seeds were stolen by the Philippine postal service repeatedly…. Nobody can prosper under such conditions! I am now moving all my butterfly farming activities to southern EU.

I hope to be more active in this nice forum in the time to come!

JAN

[Sky Blue]

Welcome Jan! I'm a smaller scale of caterpillar farmer here, breed for interest

[Commander]

Collecting and farming permit renewals in Palawan these days have become even more of a headache than previously. Export permits also proved to be a great problem already at an early stage. Even a simple sideline business like trading host plant seeds turned sour the last couple of years as even registered letters with seeds were stolen by the Philippine postal service repeatedly…. Nobody can prosper under such conditions! I am now moving all my butterfly farming activities to southern EU.

I hope to be more active in this nice forum in the time to come!

Welcome on board, Jan. And nice to have "met" you again. You did mention to me the last time that you were considering setting up a similar facility in Pakistan?

I'm surprised to hear that the postal service in Philippines has deteriorated so badly that even seeds are stolen! At least I got the package that you sent to me containing the A. foveolata and A. philippinensis. Unfortunately, I did not manage to germinate either one.

How are the A. ringens that I sent you doing?

Glad to have you here and to learn from your experiences with host plants and breeding butterflies.

[hkmoths]

Agree with Ambulyx moorei.

Not 100% convinced of Hippotion rosetta, Jan. What makes you think it is rosetta rather than boerhaviae ?

cheers,

Roger.