Silkmoths and more: Pseudobunaea cf pallens

Third time's a charm. It took some testing before I finally managed to find the proper food plant for this Pseudobunaea from the Dzalanyama Forest in Malawi. The first year I tried all the typical Pseudobunaea food plants, including Prunus and Quercus, but they didn't even look at it. Four days later all the newborn caterpillars were already dead. The second try was a little more successful. At least I got them to eat on Hoheria sexstylosa, an evergreen out of the Malvaceae family. But ... the brood completely collapsed in the third instar after several weeks of very slow and difficult growth (or almost no growth at all). This year I caught another female. Same story though. Caterpillars refusing every food plant. I had to put them on Hoheria to keep at least some alive and again the growth was dangerously slow and many died, until I discovered that Mahonia actually works remarkably well for quite many African Saturniidae. Imagine that. Such an awful looking plant and it saved this brood. Once eating, this Pseudobunaea is not even so difficult. Not more then other members of the genus. Keep warm, dry and in well ventilated plastic containers and you should not have too much difficulties. They are somewhat slow growing. Count at least two and half month before they start to pupate.