That’s how the saying goes, right? Two weeks ago I participated in the 5th annual National Geographic BioBlitz over in Saguaro National Park in Tucson, Arizona. It was a great excuse to get back into the field and it was the first time I collected Arizona in the fall. Temps were still pushing the mid 90’s but things had been dry and the impressive abundance of the monsoon season was long gone. In total my moth colleagues and I collected around 140 species of Lepidoptera, 56 of which were microleps! Sadly though it seems that either other insects were far and few inbetween, or other entomology teams didn’t carefully tally everything they saw. Only 190 arthropods were counted in total – we lost to vascular plants (325 species) and even fungi (205)!
Here is a short interview with me in a really hot tent with lots of kids (who must have given me this cold I now have). Perhaps my wild estimate of a possible 15,000 species in the US is on the high side, but it’s not impossible.
