Vapourer female, mating with male and eggs, Lower Stondon 10th August 2007

Melissa and I have been breeding through a Vapourer larva that we collected from a house in Clophill a few weeks back. It emerged yesterday as a female so we decided to try assembling males to it as they are attracted in daytime to the pheromone that she gives off.

The first photo is of the female and you will see that she is full of eggs and has only residual wings. Her sole duty is to climb onto the top of her pupal case, mate and lay her eggs. The female was put in an assembling cage in the garden at 11am and by 11.10am a male had arrived. He was disturbed as I opened the cage for him but returned a few minutes later, found the female and commenced mating. by 11.25am another two males were fluttering round the outside of the cage.
By 13.30 she had started to lay eggs with the male in close attendance.
You can see some of the eggs here.
All photos by Andy Banthorpe