For the last four weekends now I have been on a goose chase, for one moth, Heliolonche celeris. It’s a beautiful small Noctuidae with pinkish forewings and stunning orange-red hindwings. It isn’t very often encountered and only found along the northern California mountain ranges feeding on Malacothrix floccifera – a CA endemic flower. Every trip . . . → Read More: The Art of a Goose Chase
 10 comments - (Comments are closed)  Entomology  Entomology, Flowers, Hazards of Collecting, Lepidoptera, Moths, Non-Insects I’ve just illustrated my method for spreading microlepidoptera, go explore the techniques page. Who is courageous enough to attempt it?
Share this! 4 comments - (Comments are closed) Entomology Collecting, Entomology, Lepidoptera, Moths, Techniques I’ve been busy spreading microleps over the last few days, and here is a small selection from my summer collecting trips. Still have at least another 200 to go before catching up on my backlog. I am working on illustrating just how to spread these moths… so stay tuned. 2009 was a great season. I . . . → Read More: How I keep myself busy Share this!It was a beautiful day today in the bay area, so I headed up to Napa and the Pope Valley. I was scouting some new territory for a small flower moth, Heliolonche celeris, that apparently is waiting for more contiguous nice weather to emerge. This season has been a bit tardy because of all of . . . → Read More: Moth tasting in Napa Share this!The clouds broke this afternoon in San Francisco and the sun began to shine. The upcoming warm weather induced an all too familiar feeling, one that I should be out collecting insects and not sitting indoors! While I have already been to a handful of places this spring, I have a long season of collecting . . . → Read More: I may drive too much Share this! 5 comments - (Comments are closed) Entomology Collecting, Entomology, Hazards of Collecting, Lepidoptera, Moths, New Species A continuation of the aquamoth series, this time with video from Science Friday! Yes, I have to link it because wordpress won’t embed… Thanks Ted, figured it out! Share this!A few images from my weekend mothing trip down to Shell Creek, San Luis Obispo County. Early spring along the central coast is stunning, and the back roads were packed with flower watchers. There were dozens of cars occupied by families out for a weekend drive, many had packed lunches and sat to watch the . . . → Read More: Rivers of Gold Share this!I came across the full-text PDF of the amphibious moth article and extracted the tree showing the radiation of this species group and probable evolution of the amphibious traits. Interesting to note the case shape, and each moth is endemic to its own volcano in the Hawaiian archipelago. This is a Bayesian analysis of . . . → Read More: Aquamoth part 2 Share this!So, how do I begin a new blog? Tough question, but perhaps this is a good time to show off a fun new species. This moth was collected last year outside of Santa Barbara, CA. The massive wingspan, at 15mm, makes it pretty large for a Gelechiid moth. The genus, Gnorimoschema (pronounced nor-a-mosh-ma), . . . → Read More: Inaugural post Share this! |
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