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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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Terms to confuse you
One of the oddities in Lepidoptera-speak is the macro/micro distinction. As you’d expect from the name, micromoths are typically small and macromoths are typically big. But 10 seconds later you find out that there are some truly giant micromoths, which makes you wonder what numbskull chose the terms in the first place. So what’s the…
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Techniques to attract moths
I initially got into moths courtesy of my house’s outside lights. I’d been photographing everything living thing I encountered to put on iNat, so the moths that congregated at my lights each night were a particularly tantalizing target. Before I knew it I was hooked and ordered a black light to try to attract more.…
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2023 Year in review
This year I made a real effort to travel more widely around the province to see what moths I could turn up. One of the benefits of remote work is that I can work from anywhere, so figured I’d take advantage. I ended up mothing in Fort St John, Tumbler Ridge, Prince George, Osoyoos, Oliver,…
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Site Design
Bear with me while I settle on a site layout, design, colour, fonts etc. etc. I think I’ve now settled on something faintly adequate, but I’ll be tweaking it for a while yet…
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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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Desecrating the dead
This summer I picked up some Lepidoptera spreading equipment from Atelier Jean Paquet so I could start building up my own collection. Dave Holden of the BC Leps had been kind enough to show me his collection, give me an intro to pinning, and even provided a few pinned + non-pinned specimens to get my…
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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 