moths

Big Butterfly Count Coming Up in UK

/ Seth Inman / Leave a comment

Photo from bigbutterflycount.org

Starting this Friday and continuing through the first week of August, the largest survey in the world for butterflies and day-flying moths will take place in the United Kingdom. We’ve featured lepidopterists and citizen scientists here before, including today and for last year’s event, which involved over fifty thousand people counting more than half a million lepidopterans.  It’s great to see such a simple yet complete chart/app to ID the more common butterflies that people may encounter –– I would have really appreciated something like that for Costa Rica! Read more about the project below:

Why count butterflies?

Butterflies react very quickly to change in their environment which makes them excellent biodiversity indicators. Butterfly declines are an early warning for other wildlife losses.

That’s why counting butterflies can be described as taking the pulse of nature.

Continue reading →

Lepidopteran Diversity at Xandari

/ Seth Inman / 2 Comments

Over the last month or two one of my goals has been to identify as many of the butterflies and moths–or lepidopterans–that we have here at Xandari. Part of this work involves looking at old photos taken since 2014, when James and I first arrived on property and started taking pictures of wildlife; another element of the job is going out and photographing the lepidopterans in a more determined fashion.

Not an easy task, when butterflies can have such whimsical flight patterns and startle quite easily. Moths are a little simpler to chase because during the day they’re often focused on staying still and hiding out until evening. Continue reading →

Cardamom County – Home For One And All

/ Salim.E.I / Leave a comment
Actias selene

Actias selene

This entire week we have been talking about the rich fauna in the Periyar Reserve and how it overlaps into Cardamom County. Today we share with you a rare sighting of the Indian Luna Moth! We found this little guest taking shelter in our cardamom plantation waiting for night to arrive as they usually only fly in the night. Continue reading →

Mexican Moths

/ Milo Inman / 1 Comment

_MG_7886

Entomology is a relatively minor hobby of mine. I enjoy chasing after and photographing insects when I have the chance – and most places in the world have an abundance of insects. Cabo’s airport, located on the southern point of Baja California, is no exception. These photographs were taken mere minutes after disembarking the airplane on which we arrived. The thousands upon thousands of egg-laying moths were easily mistaken for bird droppings, until examined more closely.

_MG_7888 Continue reading →