National Moth Week

Antheraea polyphemus, a Saturniidae reared by Bill Oehlke

You may remember Bill Oehlke as a 2012 NMW supporter. Well, Bill has signed on again as a 2013 NMW too!

Bill grew up in New Jersey (the birthplace of National Moth Week!) and became interested in moths and butterflies over sixty years ago via an introduction by his father, Don Oehlke. Bill’s mothing set-up consists of a 175-watt mercury vapor bulb mounted onto the chimney of his house to call in female Saturniidae (giant silk moths), Sphingidae (hawkmoths) and Catocala (underwing moths).

For the last fifteen years, Bill has been actively engaged in selling livestock of Saturniidae and Sphingidae and has developed several comprehensive, public websites about about the Sphingidae of the Americas and North American Catocala moths. He also runs a small public Saturniidae site.

Bill’s main interest is in the Saturniidae and he has been assembling a private membership website called World’s Largest Saturniidae Site where over 1500 different worldwide Saturniidae species are depicted. Here, he records ranges, flight times, wingspans, larval food plants, rearing hints, and keeps country checklists for most countries of the world along with over 10,000 images of Saturniidae moths.

He also has a private membership site called Caterpillars Too! covering butterflies and their larvae from Canada and the United States.

Eucyclodes gavissima

We’re pleased to introduce NMW’s newest international partner: Biodiversity Bhutan. Follow the link to visit (and like!) their facebook page.

Callambulyx poecilus

BioDiversity Bhutan (established 2012), is a Citizen Science project initiated by the Department of Science at Mendrelgang Middle Secondary School in Tsirang, Bhutan under the supervision of Mr. Irungbam Jatishwor Singh. The Biodiversity Bhutan project aims to:

Actias parasinensis

1. Educate students about butterflies and moths.

2. Understand the behavior and ecology of butterflies and moths.

3. Educate students about the importance of Lepidoptera and the relationship of butterflies and moths with our surrounding environment.

4. Document the local diversity of butterflies and moths.

Chrysocraspeda sp.

Through this Citizen Science Project so far, 120 butterflies and 220 moth species were recorded from Mendrelgang comprising few interesting spotting of butterflies namely, Apatura sordida, Elymnias malelas, Acraea issoria, Athyma ranga ranga, Catapacilma major, Heliophorus brahma. Moths seen by the group include Actias parasinensis (pictured at left), Saturnia cidosa, Pergesa acteus, Callambulyx poecilus (pictured at left), Lyssa zampa, Eucyclodes gavissima (pictured at left), Iotaphora iridicolor,  Argina argus.

NMW has become a truly global event, and we’re welcoming new international partners weekly. This week we’re proud to introduce our newest partner: the Moth Study Group of the Nizhny Novgorod Branch of the Russian Entomological Society.

Preparation for night trapping in Nizhny Novgorod Province (L to R): Dmitry Pozhogin, Stanislav Korb, Alexander Zatakovoy.

The group has 4 members:

Stanislav Korb: A long-time butterfly collector, Stan has participated in many collecting trips in the ex-USSR, the Ural mountains, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, and Kirghizstan. He has over 100 published papers about butterflies and about 10 papers about moths and micromoths.

Dmitry Pozhogin: A long-time moth collector, Dmitry has participated in collecting trips in Vietnam, Kambodia, Tunisia, Ceylon, and of course many parts of the ex-USSR. Dmitry has one butterfly subspecies named after him.

Alexander Zatakovoy: A long-time moth collector, Alexander has participated in collecting trips in many parts of Russia: Atlai, Polar Urals, Caucasus etc.

Andrey Shaposhnikov: A long-time moth collector, Andrey has participated in collecting trips in many countries of the ex-USSR, including Kirghizstan, Kazakhstan, and Tajikistan. He has one blue butterfly subspecies and one Parnassius species named after him.

Participants of 2009 Kirghizstan expedition, Dolon Pass in Inner Tian-Shan (L to R): Dmitry Pozhogin, Natalia Storozhenko, Stanislav Korb, Andrey Shaposhnikov.

Participants of 2010 South Kazakhstan expedition, Boro-Khoro Mountains near Sary-Bel (L to R): Petr Egorov, Dmitry Pozhogin, Stanislav Korb, Denis Potanin, Anna Potanina, Andrey Shaposhnikov, Aleksey Tsilin.

Over the last 4 years the group has run 7 moth study expeditions to

• Kirghizstan – June & July 2009
• South Russia (Astrakhan, Saratov & Volgograd Provinces) – April & May 2010
• South Kazakhstan – June & July 2010, April & May 2011
• Tajikistan – June & July 2011, July 2012
• Turkey – June 2012

On these expeditions they’ve encountered many interesting moths and have published their findings in  Entomologist’s Gazette, Atalanta, and Eversmannia. If you can read Russian, you can check out the Eversmannia paper here.

The group is currently preparing a paper about Noctuidae moths of the Nizhny Novgorod Province and about Noctuidae moths of South Kazakhstan.

Participants of 2011 South Kazakhstan expedition, somewhere in South Kazakhstaniad deserts between Charyn and Ili rivers (L to R): The group malacologist , Petr Egorov, Sergey Titov, Bogdaulet Taranov, Rustem Kadyrbekov, Svyatoslav Knyazev, our driver, Stanislav Korb

This year, the group plans to return to  Middle Asia to collect some more material.  They’re hoping to discover some new and interesting moths.

Message from our new partners: “Good luck to everybody, and especially to people who are interested in moths: our Planet is still unexplored, guys, and we will for sure find something very interesting ”

Collecting micromoths in Saratov Province in 2010 by Stanislav Korb