More Than 4,000 Moth Species Flit Across Texas. One Scientist Photographed 550 in His Yard.
August 14, 2024 at 05:39PMFor Texas Monthly, Robyn Ross introduces us to herpetologist and moth enthusiast Curtis Eckerman. He’s part of a community of nature lovers documenting the animals, birds, and insects they discover around them with an app called iNaturalist.
The most common type of moths in the U.S. are noctuids, the smaller, grayish-brown moths that congregate around porch lights—“Your stereotypical moth,” Eckerman says. Showier hawk moths are active during the day and often confused with hummingbirds. Silk moths, such as the luna moth, enormous and apple green, don’t have functional mouth parts; their one-to-two-week adult lives are powered by whatever fat they’ve stored as caterpillars. Micromoths—a broad descriptor that can include noctuids and moths in other families—have wingspans under twenty millimeters long, but are worth viewing through a magnifying glass or camera to admire their vivid colors and patterns. They’re one of Eckerman’s favorite groups to photograph because of the “hidden-gem effect,” he says. “It’s the idea that you get to see something that somebody normally doesn’t see. . . . You feel like you’re exploring a world that others are not exploring, even though it’s around them all the time.”
from Longreads https://longreads.com/2024/08/14/more-than-4000-moth-species-flit-across-texas-one-scientist-photographed-550-in-his-yard/
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