A Couple I.D Requests

The roaches are Parcoblattas.

The millipedes are in the genus Apheloria. Maybe A. virginensis.

The caterpillar looks like a Pandora Sphinx Moth. It will turn into a very beautiful moth, unless it's been parasitized by braconid wasps which happens to them very frequently.

The katydid is some sort of conehead.

The little white fluffy guys are woolly aphids. Sometimes when a bunch of them are flying around it looks like it's snowing.

 
The roaches are indeed Parcoblatta, probably P.virginica, though they could be P.pennsylvanica as well. Nice finds! :)

 
Hisserdude said:
The roaches are indeed Parcoblatta, probably P.virginica, though they could be P.pennsylvanica as well. Nice finds! :)
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Awesome, glad that they are Parcoblatta, hopefully I have a pair out of the four I found :) Thanks, didn't end up keeping the caterpillar or katydid though.

 
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All About Insects said:
Does anyone happen to know what types of leaves the Pandora sphinx moth caterpillar eats?
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They eat grape leaves, though I'm pretty sure that's not the only thing they eat and you should feed them whatever plant you find them on. If you find a large specimen crawling around on the ground it's probably done eating and looking for a place to pupate.

 
Salmonsaladsandwich said:
They eat grape leaves, though I'm pretty sure that's not the only thing they eat and you should feed them whatever plant you find them on. If you find a large specimen crawling around on the ground it's probably done eating and looking for a place to pupate.
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Makes sense, we found it on a kind of ivy, and I have grape vines growing all over my fence, so shouldn't be a problem feeding it.

 
NOOOO!!! Just checked on it to see a ton of small parasitic wasp larvae coming out of it's back! :( Was really hoping to rear this beautiful caterpillar to an adult. I will try to preserve it's body once it dies( which will most likely happen within a few hours.)

I'll make a blog post later with a couple pics of the grim scene.

But on a good note, I was able to catch 3 more P.virginica and 1 more pale-form A.virginiensis, a very small lynx spider sling, and a couple P.permundus and P.scaber

 
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All About Insects said:
NOOOO!!! Just checked on it to see a ton of small parasitic wasp larvae coming out of it's back! :( Was really hoping to rear this beautiful caterpillar to an adult. I will try to preserve it's body once it dies( which will most likely happen within a few hours.)

I'll make a blog post later with a couple pics of the grim scene.
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Yup. That's what happens to 'em every time. I've tried to rear dozens of sphinx moth larvae and only one didn't turn out to be infested with wasps.

If you want to rear sphinx moths that don't erupt into piles of wasp grubs keep an eye out for adults next year, maybe set up a light sheet and if you're lucky you might find a gravid female. You can also order eggs pretty cheap from places like InsectNet or trade livestock on Ovogram.

 
The conehead is a male Neoconocephalus sp, probably N. retusus. I have not had much luck keeping members of this genus, the longest I have kept an adult was a couple of weeks before it died.

 
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