Acherontia atropos eggs available now! Best quality

We offer Acherontia atropos eggs, the death’s head hawkmoth, laid by a wild collected female in north Italy, Milano area, during a field trip.

We will have scarce availabilities, please order as soon as possible by contact us. Given the high summer temperatures EU clients assume the risk of eggs hatching in travel, we will ship only eggs laid the night before. Unfortunately this product is not available for Extra-EU clients.

Acherontia atropos eggs, how to start

Acherontia atropos is one of the most loved species by Lepidoptera amateur breeders. Why? Because the caterpillars are beautiful eating machines, they grow very large and heavy. In addition, adult moths pair and lay eggs easily. As adults, they can live up to two months and their thorax shows the skull which made them a celebrity among moths. Oh right, the moth squeaks in an adorable but loud way! These features should already be enough to give them a chance.

Acherontia atropos pupa, stock from Lombardia, Italy.

Breeding case acherontia atropos – read the full article

Handling Acherontia atropos eggs is quite easy, making them suitable for beginners too.

About Acherontia atropos

The death’s-head hawkmoth, is a member of the Sphingidae family (Lepidoptera, Bombycoidea). It is distributed across southern Europe and throughout Africa. This line is from Italy. During winter we have struggled to keep this line on. Conversely, when the season gets warmer, Acherontia atropos adults perform very well. The ones shown here promptly paired the night after emergence, hopefully eggs will came soon! This species has a migratory behavior so is likely that adults, forced to keep cycling during winter, show difficulties in pairing and laying eggs when is too cold for them.

Adults, in the wild, steal honey from bee-hives. In captivity you’ll need to feed them with a honey-water 1:3 solution. Adults need to be fed by hand and to do so we use a stingless syringe in which we add the honey-water solution, making a new one every 2-3 days to avoid fermentation. We feed the adults starting on the 2nd/3rd day after emergence and, since then, every two days.