I’ll keep the ball rolling with Arctiinae and post a photo today of Ctenucha brunnea. This moth can be common in tall grasses along beaches from San Francisco to LA – although in recent decades the numbers of this moth have been declining with habitat destruction and the invasion of beach grass (Ammophila arenaria). But . . . → Read More: Monday Moth
 One comment - (Comments are closed)  Entomology  California Academy of Sciences, Entomology, Lepidoptera, Monday Moth, Moths, Species Today’s moth is a beautiful and rare species from SE Arizona and Mexico: Lerina incarnata (Erebidae: Arctiinae). Like many other day flying species it is brilliantly colored and quite likely aposematic. After all, the host plant is a milkweed and the caterpillar is just as stunning (below). Lerina incarnata (Erebidae: Arctiinae)
This . . . → Read More: Monday Moth Share this!
It seems like there is a preponderance of urban legends that involve insects crawling into our faces while we sleep. The most famous myth is something along the lines of “you eat 8 spiders a year while sleeping“. Actually when you google that the number ranges from 4 to 8… up to . . . → Read More: All New, Attack Moths! Share this! 5 comments - (Comments are closed) Entomology, Skepticism Entomology, Health, Media, Moths, Myths, Skepticism, Spiders I’m going to keep the ball rolling with this series and try to make it more regular. I will also focus on highlighting a new species each week from the massive collections here at the California Academy of Sciences. This should give me enough material for… at least a few hundred years. Grammia . . . → Read More: Monday Moth Share this! One comment - (Comments are closed) Entomology California Academy of Sciences, Collecting, Ecology, Entomology, Extinct, Lepidoptera, Monday Moth, Moths, Species Map/% updated June 20, 6pm. Updates to the maps and containment percentages have been made to my earlier post. Here is a map of the 4th fire burning in SE Arizona, the Monument fire. This one is only 10% 17% 15% 27% contained and is burning in the southern end of the Huachuca Mountains . . . → Read More: Arizona followup Share this!
Whoops, it’s almost Tuesday! Above is Schinia ligeae (Noctuidae) resting on its host plant Xylorhiza tortifolia, the Mojave Aster. I photographed this about three weeks ago outside the town of Big Pine, California. The asters were thick in the valleys below the snow capped Sierra, and the moths were abundant. . . . → Read More: Monday Moth Share this! 2 comments - (Comments are closed) Entomology Collecting, Entomology, Flowers, Lepidoptera, Moths, Photography
Who can tell me what’s wrong below? Not only is it the obvious photo problem, but the author of the article takes some logical leaps to support his premise. Who can tell me what his logical fallacies are? I won’t link to the entire article quite yet because a well known Lepidopterist has already . . . → Read More: Genius of the Press XVIII Share this! One comment - (Comments are closed) Entomology, Skepticism Contest, Entomology, LBAM, Logical Fallacies, Moths, Skepticism
Everyone is familiar with the famous death’s head hawkmoth, but I think it’s a shame we have popularized such a grim character. Above is a much more cheery Neotropical Arctiinae from French Guiana that looks like it’s sporting a clown face. Sadly this isn’t my photograph, but . . . → Read More: Sunday Moth Share this! 4 comments - (Comments are closed) Entomology Collecting, France, French Guiana, Lepidoptera, Moths, Photography, Tropics A few weeks ago I was invited to join a Berkeley entomology class out in the field for the weekend. Our destination was the Blue Oak Ranch Reserve; one of the newest reserves to the University of California system located just outside of San Jose on Mount Hamilton (map below). It was a . . . → Read More: Blue Oak Ranch Reserve Share this! Comments are closed Entomology Beetles, Berkeley, Entomology, Moths, Photography, Spiders, University of California Usually I come across horrible entomology articles regularly enough that I save a backlog for future series. This hasn’t been the case over the last few weeks, I haven’t come across the normal array of terrible media crud. Maybe I just get jaded and stop looking as carefully – but this week I even came . . . → Read More: Genius of the Press XVII Share this! |
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