For regular readers of my blog you might already know my stance on the monarch, but catch up here if you’d like to. Yesterday I came across this article in the LA times – regarding the overwintering colonies of monarchs in Pacific Grove, CA. Out here, west of the continental divide, there are quite a…
This genius of the press is extra special, not for its difficulty, but for its redundancy. I found the same story carried on two separate sources, with different images – and both equally incorrect! I can imagine that it won’t take long for someone to point out exactly what’s wrong with these stories (hint, there…
This one is just too easy. The billboard is on I-35 south of Burleson, Texas. I don’t know the true provenance of this image, but it came my way from Omar Bocanegra via Mike Quinn on the Texas Lepidoptera list-serv.
Here is a hill-topping male Papilio zeliacon, or Anise swallowtail. This butterfly is widespread in the western Pacific states and is probably much more common than it once was. After the introduction of fennel (Foeniculum vulgare), and subsequent escape from horticulture, the anise swallowtail took hold as a common California butterfly. Perhaps before this plant overtook…
Here are a few more images from my recent northern road trip, this time from western Idaho. Right outside the town of New Meadows were fields of flowers thick with life. It was some of the best day collecting I’ve done in years, and fellow road tripper Peter Jump and I discovered this population of…
In eastern Lassen county, on the vast high juniper hills of the California-Nevada border, there are herds of “wild” horses, sheep and cattle. Par for the course, the only flowering plant around was horehound (Marrubium vulgare). Despite the non-native flora and (semi)mega-fauna, the insects were still at home. Being the only nectar source, the small…
Over the next week and a half I’ll be driving up to Washington state for the annual Lepidopterists’ Society meeting. It is located in the tourist-trap town of Leavenworth, which is a “Bavarian themed” diorama of postcard and clog shops. While I can never quite understand the appeal of themed towns, it is something Americans just…
Welcome to volume eight of the inconsistently reoccurring series, Genius of the Press. I came across this article recently regarding an endemic Puerto Rican butterfly. Who can tell me exactly why this report is misleading? It may be a little trickier than the standard GOP (I suggest discarding any previously associated acronyms with those letters)….
Welcome to The Moth and Me #12, and my first blog carnival. Despite blogging for a few months I have yet to take a look back and reflect on exactly how I became enamored with lepidoptera in the first place. Remembering a time or location where this happened is impossible, and like many of my…
This moth is just about as rare as its paranormal namesake (except that it’s real) – it’s a Gazoryctra sp. in the family Hepialidae. They represent a basal lineage of the Lepidoptera and are commonly known as ghost moths or swift moths. Ghost – because males of some species are known to fly in true…