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Journal of the Lepidopterists' Society 35(3), 1981, 247
TWO NOTABLE RANGE EXTENSIONS FOR CALLOSAMIA SECURIFERA (SATURNIIDAE) IN GEORGIA AND SOUTH CAROLINA
Probably no other native moth has attracted so much attention in the past twenty years as Callosamia securifera (Maassen). Its geographical distribution is still only poorly known, partly because the species was not well understood until recently, having been ignored or treated as merely a subspecies of Callosamia angulifera (Walker), and partly because the coastal plain areas of the southeastern United States, where it occurs, have not been well collected. Peigler (1976, J. Lepid. Soc, 30: 111-113) described how to collect cocoons of C. securifera and summarized the known distribution (1975, ibid., 29: 188-191). Pertinent to the records described below is a map presented by Peigler (1975) showing not only the documented areas in which the species has been found, but also hypothetical areas postulated on the basis of correlations of the distribution of the food plant, sweetbay, Magnolia virginiana L., with elements of the Floridian flora that spread northward and westward on the Coastal Plain.
During botanical field work on 17 February 1980, in company with Earl Parker and Florence and Raymond Givens, the senior author discovered two unmistakable cocoons of C. securifera in Turner County, Georgia, near where Interstate 75 crosses the west fork of Deep Creek, 14.5 km north of Ashburn. The habitat is an extensive open swampy area west of the highway dominated by hundreds of young saplings and trees of bald cypress, Taxodium distichum (L.) Richard, most of them less than 5 m tall. Here numerous young trees and shrubs of sweetbay are scattered over an area of about 0.8 km2. On the date of the visit, the foliage of sweetbay was still green and attached. The first cocoon was wrapped in three leaves drawn together longitudinally and was found at the tip of a leader shoot about 2 m high. The second cocoon had lost its surrounding leaves except for part of a brown leaf blade on one side and was hanging from a branch about 3 m high. Both cocoons were pale silver in color, with a compact, hard central cell and a very loose, soft outer covering, in contrast to the typical pendent cocoon of the common C. promethea (Drury), which is usually darker, much smaller, and with little differentiation between the inner cell and the outer covering. Cocoons of C. securifera were figured by Jones (1909, Entomol. News, 20: 49-51, pis. 3, 4). A typical male emerged from one of the cocoons during the following summer.
This new locality is the third for this rare species in Georgia and is over 150 km west of the previously reported ones in Long Co. and the Okefenokee Swamp. More importantly, the place is nearly 130 km north of Peigler's documented area of 1975 (fig. 1), being at the extreme north edge of his hypothetical area, thus, confirming the postulated inland extent of C. securifera. Indeed, this is evidently the most inland site ever reported for this species, being almost 190 km from the nearest shore of the Gulf of Mexico.
Another significant record, previously unpublished, is Screven Co., Georgia. A female from this county taken 20 May 1946 by Otto Buchholz is in the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. The correct determination of the specimen was verified by the junior author.
Still another notable range extension was reported to us by John W. McCord, who discovered three cocoons of C. securifera in his yard a few kilometers southeast of Manning, Clarendon Co., South Carolina. This record is not only a new county record but a major range extension inland for that state.
Warren Herb Wagner, Jr., Department of Botany, The University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109, & Richard S. Peigler, 303 Shannon Drive, Greenville, South Carolina 20615.