Night Flyers: North American Silk Moths Face Invasive Challenge
May 15, 2014Golden started raising the large, showy moths after noticing an alarming drop in the number of cocoons in her backyard. “We used to find the tree-borne cocoons of the cecropia and the promethea in the winter when we were cross-country skiing,” she said. “We’d bring them home and tie them in the appropriate [food source] trees around the yard. We would find easily over 100 cocoons, usually closer to 150 or more. Then, about six years ago, there were noticeably fewer cocoons, and the ones we did find had a very low hatch rate. When I opened the unhatched cocoons, they had clearly been parasitized.” Read the article »
Naturally Curious: Season of the Giant Moths
June 17, 2013Perhaps because of their size, or because we don’t see them that often, giant silk moths cause quite a stir when discovered on a June morning, clinging to a screen door or window near an outdoor light that was on overnight. Read the article at the Valley News »
Moth Decline in the Northeastern United States
July 01, 2012The matter of moth decline in the Northeast and southern Canada, particularly of larger moths, has been of concern for a half century. I offer an assessment, based on my 23 years in New England. Mine is a perspective piece meant to raise the issue of moth decline to a larger audience—it is a call for study, a research agenda—offered in the absence of the quantitative data needed to make rigorous species-by-species status assessments. Read the article »
