Mark your calendars: National Moth Week!

National Moth Week is a new project celebrating moths and biodiversity in the US.

July 23-29, 2012

Why moths? Moths can be found everywhere from inner cities to heavily forested remote areas.  You might dismiss moths as boring brown fluttery things, but Moth Week is a great time to look more closely.

They can be amazing mimics; they can be as tiny as the head of a pin. They can be huge with surprising underwing patterns, like the moth on the Moth Week Logo.

The purpose of Moth Week is two-fold; to encourage people to go outside and look at the life around them, and also to encourage people to document and submit what they see as part of a larger citizen science project.

You don’t need to know what you are looking at to participate–if you post your images on the Discover Life site (following the protocol), they will identify them for you!

You can find instructions for having a Moth Party at your house on the Discover Life website, too.  I plan to have a Moth Night Celebration at my house in Connecticut; let me know if you are interested!  I live in a perfect area for mothing–streams, a big pond, forest, and agricultural land all near me.  We’ll get lots of interesting insects, including moths.

Join me in being one Bad Moth-er…
(Shut your mouth!)

Some great resources:

• How to light trap moths (PDF)
• How to bait for moths (PDF)
• BugGuide has photos of most common moths in the US!

Would you like to see my Engravings?

I feature the BiblioOdessy blog here semi-regularly, since he seems to find lovely old insect artwork everywhere.

This week: Charming hand-coloured 18th century moth illustrations found in EJC Esper’s ‘Die Schmetterlinge in Abbildungen nach der Natur’ [vol. 4] from 1786, sourced from the University of Heidelberg.  Definitely click over and look at the full size images–lovely!

And possibly useful for inviting potential dates to your lair?

25 Butterfly Conservation Scholarships!

This sounds totally nifty. Alas, I have absolutely no excuse to sign up, since I’m not involved in butterfly rearing or restoration, but I really want to go!

The Florida Museum of Natural History/McGuire Center for Lepidoptera and Biodiversity at the University of Florida and the Butterfly Conservation Initiative are requesting scholarship applications for a new professional training program….designed to strengthen the capacity of institutions and their staff to play a strategic role in imperiled butterfly recovery.

Imperiled Butterfly Conservation and Management (IBCM) is designed for professionals from natural history museums, zoos, aquariums, botanical gardens, arboretums, nature centers, science/technology centers or similar conservation-based institutions. Successful applicants will participate in a series of five (5) intensive four-day laboratory and field training workshops over three years from 2009 to
2011. Workshops and on-going mentoring will provide structured, hands-on skills training, opportunities to share information, learn best-practices, and foster new collaborations, as well as the resources necessary to launch or enhance important butterfly-focused conservation programs.

*A total of twenty-five (25) full scholarships will be available*.
Scholarships cover ALL participant costs including domestic airfare and ground transportation, hotel accommodations, and meal stipend. Multiple individuals from each institution may apply. Application deadline is February 23, 2009. For an application or more information, please contact Dr. Jaret Daniels at <email removed, but you can find it here>.

Host Plant Index!

This time of year, when snow is on the ground, seed catalogs begin arriving in mailboxes. 

I have always loved Michael Perry’s great line from Truck:

“Seed catalogs are responsible for more unfulfilled fantasies than Enron and Playboy combined.”

Before you do any ordering, why not check out this Lepidopteran Ornamental Host Plant Guide!

“Landscaping paradigms have promoted the use of alien ornamentals over native plants with ornamental value for over a century. The bias toward landscaping with alien ornamentals has been so complete that the first trophic level in suburban/urban ecosystems throughout U.S. is now dominated by plant species that evolved elsewhere….

The following list is our attempt to categorize native and alien plant genera in terms of their ability to support insect herbivores…. We did this by ranking all native plant genera (woody and herbaceous) in terms of the number of Lepidoptera species recorded using them as host plants. Our hope is that this ranking will be used as one of the criteria for plant selections in managed and unmanaged landscapes by restoration ecologists, landscape architects and designers, land managers, and homeowners.”

The index is the work of Doug Tallamy, at the University of Delaware.  You can read a profile of him and his work in the NY Times.

Lepidoptera Scholarships!

The Joan Mosenthal DeWind Awards 2009

“The Xerces Society is now accepting applications for two $3,750 awards for research into Lepidoptera conservation.

The DeWind awards are given to students who are engaged in research leading to a university degree related to Lepidoptera conservation and who intend to continue to work in this field. All proposals must be written by the student researcher. Proposed research should have a clear connection to Lepidoptera conservation and must be completed within one year from receiving funds.

Applicants may be graduate or undergraduate students; however, please note that all but one awardee, to date, have been pursuing graduate research. Applications from countries outside the United States will be considered.

The submission deadline is Friday, December 19, 2008 at 5:00 PM PST. Award winners will be announced by March 31, 2009, with the awards given by May 2009.”

More info here

Jesus on a Moth!

No, that’s not an expression like “Christ on a Cracker!”

Someone in Tyler, Texas (It had to be Texas….) thinks he sees Jesus on this moth.  You know you have comedy gold just from this line:

Kirk Harper spotted the moth on an RV trailer Monday, and right away could tell it was unique. [emphasis mine]

And…oh boy…there’s a poll on that news story.  Right now 13% of the respondents can see Jesus on the moth.

Thanks muchly to Dwindling in Unbelief for finding this! Check out his larger photos of the moth, and play “spot the authority figure” on the moth thorax.

Those of you in the know will recognize this as an Imperial Moth.  It’s a broadly ranging moth in the Eastern US, including Michigan.