National Moth Week

It's National Moth Week! A time when the diversity of moths throughout the country reaches a fever pitch.

In my occupation as a senior ecologist with GZA, GeoEnvironmental I use moths as means test to evaluate the ecological integrity of land. Moths are like tealeaves......if you know how to interrupt them. They can be indicators of where your piece of terra firma sits within a compendium of impacts - ranging from highly damaged to natural and pristine.

Last night I was out with a colleague doing a rapid bioassessment, deploying a 400-watt metal halide lamp to draw them, the moths, in. At which point we read the "tea leaves", the moths that come to the light, to try and gain some insight into the health of the survey area and surroundings. With approximately 3,200 (+/- species) in New Jersey, that's a lot of tea-leave-potential to evaluate and derive some meaningful information about the survey area.

During the evening one of the many species that came to the party was the Oldwife (Catocala palaeogama), a moth whose larvae specializes on walnut and hickory - see attached image.

Moths form, function, variety, and sheer bizarreness and beauty cannot be understated. Suggestion: maybe find the time this national moth week to get out to a porch light near you and maybe, just maybe, a whole new universe will open up to the mind's eye!