We have an excellent breeding stock of this species currently and expect the next brood of eggs in November and cocoons in December/January.
Antherina suraka (Boisduval, 1833), commonly known as the Madagascan Bullseye moth, is a Giant Silk-moth species endemic to Madagascar and some nearby islands. Beautiful in all stages, this moth begins life as a small hatchling almost entirely black in colour with some small yellow/orange tubercles, quickly growing to a large size and eventually becoming very colourful in the final stages before pupation - with various colour forms in shades of green and black with bright red-pink protrusions. Caterpillars are extremely versatile in their choice of host plants, accepting many different species, however we find that they do best and grow largest on hosts like Privet, Sweetgum, or Oleander. Development does not take long and caterpillars typically reach maturity at around 5 weeks old, when they begin to construct mesh-like silk cocoons either among host plants or on the sides of their enclosure. Kept warm and humid, adult moths emerge around a month later.
