A Very Hoppy Butterfly Researcher

The Hop Azure (Celastrina humulus) is a diminutive and uncommon blue found on the front range of the Rockies here in Colorado. Its host plant is the wild hop: Humulus lupulus, varieties of which are of course a critical ingredient in beer! In a week or two I’ll be out in the field looking to . . . → Read More: A Very Hoppy Butterfly Researcher

When Taxonomy Makes a Species Less Critically Endangered

The story of many San Francisco butterflies are well known and depressing. The area has been heavily impacted by human development for over two centuries and is the infamous home to the first known example of an extinct American butterfly, the Xerces blue. While other butterflies are hanging on, or getting help to hang on . . . → Read More: When Taxonomy Makes a Species Less Critically Endangered

National Moth Week 2012

The first annual National Moth Week will be this summer, July 23-29, 2012! This is the first event of its kind in the US (it has been popular in the UK for quite some time) and is an attempt to encourage people to head outside and explore their often overlooked moth fauna. The US has . . . → Read More: National Moth Week 2012

Vote for Shark Conservation!

Fellow network blogger David Shiffman is in the final laps of a $10,000 scholarship challenge. The money will not only support David’s blogging at Southern Fried Science, but shark conservation research (including a contest to name the shark he will tag with the funds). Take a moment and vote for him, once every 24 hours! . . . → Read More: Vote for Shark Conservation!

Busy as a Moth

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 . . . → Read More: Busy as a Moth

Butterfly Vengeance

Plebejus samuelis

We all saw this day coming, the rise of the butterflies, the day they will take vengeance on us. No longer will they passively fly around their habitats as they are bulldozed for malls and polluted with runoff. One particularly angry Karner Blue has submitted a letter to . . . → Read More: Butterfly Vengeance

NABA Turns Fish and Wildlife into Brainless Zombies

Fresh off the presses, the Miami Blue Butterfly (MBB) is now listed as federally endangered by act of an emergency provision. Huzzah! (right?)

Miami Blue Butterfly from Butterflies of America

My first thought was “wait, wasn’t this already endangered?”. Yes, turns out the MBB has been state-endangered since 2002 after a previous emergency . . . → Read More: NABA Turns Fish and Wildlife into Brainless Zombies

Arizona on Fire

Maps/containment % updated: 16 June

As July approaches I being to look forward to the Pacific Coast meeting of the Lepidopterists’ Society. This year it will take place in Prescott Arizona, about 2 hours north of Phoenix. And as of this moment it is one of the few places in Arizona not on fire. . . . → Read More: Arizona on Fire

The Mission Blue Butterfly

 

Male – Marin Headlands

Like so many other urban animals, the Mission Blue Butterfly (Plebejus icarioides missionensis) is one that is gravely imperiled. This small blue lives in tiny fragments of habitat alongside multi-million dollar development in and around the San Francisco Bay. A century ago this butterfly . . . → Read More: The Mission Blue Butterfly

Richard Branson is an Idiot

 

Source: Wikipedia

It turns out that Richard Branson has a new idea; to save the ring-tailed lemur (Lemur catta) by importing them to his private British Virgin Island. As the article points out Branson spent millions of pounds and years of effort to turn the island into “the most ecologically . . . → Read More: Richard Branson is an Idiot