Sunday, July 7, 2013

First captive reared male emerges

The first of my captive reared iris has emerged today, a perfect male. So its off to the woods tomorrow to introduce him to his new home.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

The first of my captive reared iris emerged today as well , also male.Was drinking from my palm in preparation for the ladies !

irisscientist said...

As is characteristic of such species, males will always emerge around 1 week earlier than the females in order that the males are able to acquire the necessary compounds essential to their copulation. Of course there are always exceptions to the rule, for instance my first pupae this year was female, whilst nearly all after have been male. Have since been waiting what seams like an eternity to acquire 4 females to dispatch to Sweden for analysis. Thankfully shipment will finally be on route tomorrow.