Four Oleander Hawk-moths hatched the Natural History Museum in Burgas

The exhibition of live tropical butterflies in the museum is going to its end, but the surprises do not stop. The visitors of the Natural-history museum in August may remember the beautiful oleanders in the hall with butterflies, kindly provided by Burgastsvet-90 Tanev LTD. It turned out that the oleanders were not alone. Two weeks after the start of the exhibition, the curators found on the plants caterpillars of an extremely rare species for Bulgaria - Oleander Hawk-moth (Daphnis nerii). Four caterpillars were transferred to specially prepared for them a box full of fresh oleander leaves. There they turned into cocoons and only two weeks later hatched infront of the happy museum curators. Because they are very rare species for our lands, early this morning they were released in the wild.

Daphnis nerii is a large hawk-moth found in wide areas of Africa and Asia. It is a migratory species, flying to parts of eastern and southern Europe during the summer, particularly Turkey. The caterpillars feed mainly on oleander (Nerium oleander) leaves, a highly toxic plant to which toxicity they are immune.
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