On a sunny Saturday morning in October 2022, Shlomi Levi and his family were going for a hike. As they were leaving their apartment building in Ness Ziona, south of Tel Aviv, Shlomi noticed a moth near the building entrance light, not far from the garbage cans. He snapped two photos on his cell phone. When they returned, the moth was gone. But Shlomi had the photos.

Shlomi is a farm animal veterinarian, an avid birder and photographer. In the last couple of years, he has also become interested in moths.

That evening, he tried to identify the moth in the photos. He knew it was a geometer but also knew he’d never seen this species before. On the Israel nature site run by Oz Ritner, National Moth Week’s country coordinator for Israel, Shlomi found what he was looking for: The moth was a Paulus’ geometer – Selidosema combustaria.

Paulus’ geometer was first collected by an insect dealer named Paulus and described by German entomologist Rudolf Püngeler in 1903. This specimen of a male is housed in a museum in Germany. The collection site is described as “near the Jordan River,” but since he was a rare insect dealer, it is likely that the location is not correct because he would not have wanted others to know where to find this rare species. The one Shlomi found was a dark morph of the species, compared to the ones found previously.

This enigmatic species was not seen again until 2014 when a few individuals showed up at Oz’s light trap in the Lahav area of Israel. Three individuals were sent to be housed in the German museum after a DNA sample for taken. Another is in an Israeli collection.

This moth was not seen again until Shlomi found it in 2022.

“This is why citizen science is so important,” said National Moth Week co-founder Liti Haramaty. “When people of all backgrounds, not just scientists, document moths in their local habitats, they can turn up amazing discoveries, like Shlomi did. It can happen to anybody.”

For Dave Rentz, however, there’s a convenient work-around: He lives in northeastern Australia, where observing moths – along with his other favorite insects – can be a year-round activity.

“We are in the heart of the tropics, north of the Tropic of Capricorn, and have a wonderful tropical botanic garden in Cairns where we hold our moth nights,” Dave said. “In other parts of the country, they hold similar moth nights, but our seasons are opposite from yours. Our summer is from November to March.”

A retired entomologist, he has led moth nights at the Cairns Botanic Gardens for the past several years, attracting 40 to 60 local residents to see what’s flying. According to Dave, they are likely to get a good showing.

“The moth population is very, very diverse. A colleague estimated that there are 4,000 species here in Kuranda,” he said. Kuranda, outside of Cairns, where Rentz lives, is in the heart of a rain forest.

As the country coordinator for Australia, Dave will be helping to raise the visibility of NMW and increase appreciation for moths around the country, even if moth nights must be scheduled during more temperate times of the year.

Dave’s love of insects began in his native San Francisco, where he hunted crickets and grasshoppers as a boy in the sand dunes that lined the yet-undeveloped streets near the bay. The student programs he attended at the California Academy of Sciences set him on the path toward a career in entomology. He earned his bachelor’s degree and Ph.D. at UC Berkeley.

During his career, Dave specialized in Orthoptera, the order that includes grasshoppers, locusts and crickets, and Blattodea, which includes cockroaches and termites.

In 1977, he and his family moved to Canberra, in southeastern Australia, where he worked for CSIRO, Australia’s national science agency, for many years before retiring to Kuranda.

Not surprisingly for someone who loves insects, Dave has added moths to his insects of interest, along with the people who watch them. “I enjoy meeting the people and discovering their interests in insect photography and insect biology.”

Read about moth night at the Cairns Botanic Garden.

Check out Dave’s blog.

Sunday is an emerging expert in the field of biodiversity informatics and has published data with The Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) and iNaturalist portals. He is on the faculty of Agricultural Sciences with the University of Abomey-Calavi and president of the NGO (non-governmental organization) SOS Biodiversity.

“For two years, I have participated in NMW,” Sunday said. “Through SOS Biodiversity, I count on bringing several nature lovers to the event.”

The French-speaking nation of Benin is located in West Africa on the shores of the Gulf of Guinea. A tropical nation with some 11.5 million people, Benin is an important exporter of cotton and palm oil.

Sunday noted that he managers a network of young African researchers and hopes some will bring NMW to their countries as well.

Sunday told us about himself:

“In 2013, I obtained my Agronomical Engineer diploma in natural resource management.  My engineering thesis focused on the theme “Structure, ecology and spatial distribution of Antiaris toxicaria Lesch. and Ceiba pentandra (L) Gaert in the forests of South Benin.”  This gave me a taste for research in forest ecology and inspired me to pursue doctoral studies. Thus, I signed up for a Master of Sciences that I obtained in 2015 still in the same faculty.  This diploma allowed me to register in 2017 for a Ph.D. in the same university under the supervision of the Laboratory of Forest Sciences (LSF). 

As a research assistant at LSF, I have conducted research and published several scientific articles in international journals.  My research in biodiversity conservation led me to discover the biodiversity informatics field. I have published several biodiversity data through GBIF and iNaturalist portals. I am currently a member of GBIF Benin and moderator of the IPT (Integrated Publishing Toolkit) of GBIF Benin.

My career is not that academic. My passion for the forest, ecology, biodiversity, and sustainable development, drove me to create September 2016 the NGO SOS Biodiversity . As president of this NGO, I work actively for the conservation of biodiversity and the sustainable management of the environment.”