Category: iNaturalist
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Golden, BC, May-June 2025 – Part 2: Micros
The first part covered the notable macros I found on the trip, now let’s turn to the little guys. These actually contained many of the more interesting finds. Lots to cover, hoo boy. Here goes. * = lifer** = new for BC on iNat Cydia fletcherana * ** Let’s start with this fella. Brilliant. I…
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Golden, BC, May-June 2025 – Part 1: Macros
Home at last! I’m back from a 5 week trip to Golden BC. En route, I stayed in Merritt and Salmon Arm setting up traps at both locations, but the bulk of my time was spent mothing around Golden. Today I got some time to crunch through my observations, so here’s a quick trip summary…
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Updates; Back to the Cape
The photo above is of a Lithophane amanda (Amanda’s pinion moth), taken this morning. These are flagged as Vulnerable in BC by NatureServe, and the first time I’ve gotten one on the west side of Bowen Island. Lots of miscellaneous moth-related news! Let’s start with… UK Trip I just got back from week in the…
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BC Curated Checklist Update
Last week I released an update to the BC Leps Curated List which updates the BC list (now at 2855) and adds New Additions and Taxon Changes sections. This has been a bit of a labour of love these last few months, with the help and advice from a couple of members of the BC…
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Alberta Lep Guild: interactive iNat feature
I was recently contacted to add in the same feature I wrote for the BCLeps site: an interactive page that lists provincial lep observations and data, pulled from iNaturalist – only this time for the Alberta Lep Guild, so showing Alberta lepidoptera information. So, tada! It’s actually a free, open source script that I wrote…
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BC checklists – discrepancies
Last week (late March 2024) Doug Macaulay published a new checklist for the lepidoptera of BC, totalling 2901 species. In contrast, our curated BC Leps checklist only contains 2841, a full 60 species fewer. So wherein lies the difference? Excitement! Drama! For people who aren’t familiar, the BC Leps site list is the result of specific, knowledgable…
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Drepanidae
Merry Christmas! What could possibly be more festive than examining a family in the Lepidoptera order to see what species are present in BC, Canada? I agree: nothing whatsoever. So let’s look at the Drepanidae, the false owlets and hooktip moths. I’ve seen the bulk of the 11-odd species found in BC, but the radical…
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Oecophoridae
Yesterday I posted about the members of the Decantha genus found here in BC. Today I wanted to continue that thought and take a little step back to look at the whole family, Oecophoridae. The post’s header screenshot above lists the species that have been reported on iNat as of today. The Annotated Taxonomic Checklist…
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Decantha
One of the lovelier micromoths I get to see here on Bowen Island is Decantha stonda, image shown above. I’ve personally seen them here and the Okanagan (Osoyoos + Oliver). They’re not reported all that much, but being a micro they’re probably being overlooked. In the past I recall stumbling across them on the sheet…
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Acleris clarkei
This year I spent May up in the Peace River region of our province, staying in an airbnb in Fort St John. Persistent forest fires and thick smoke notwithstanding, I still saw a glorious array of moths. One of the highlights was this unobtrustive little fella: Acleris clarkei.
BC Moths 