Join us for National Moth Week, 2023!
Dear Observers,
Thank you for your continued commitment to learning about and increasing the scientific understanding of insect pollinators through data collection in your communities around the world! We’re glad to see your ongoing contribution of photographs – documenting this project’s four target Taxa: Coleoptera (Beetles), Diptera (Flies), Hymenoptera (Ants, Bees, Wasps, and Sawflies), and Lepidoptera (Butterflies and Moths).
While we encourage you to continue making observations of all of these groups of insects, this month we are focusing on one Taxa in particular, Lepidoptera.
Specifically, the largest group of Lepidopterans, moths. With over 150,000 estimated species of moths worldwide, moths greatly outnumber the diversity of butterflies on the planet, with only ~17,500 estimated species of butterflies (https://www.si.edu/spotlight/buginfo/moths).
From July 22 – 30, we hope that you will join us in celebrating National Moth Week – an annual initiative focused on the conservation of these important and often undervalued organisms.
We encourage you to contribute observations of these vital pollinators to this project on iNaturalist. Please also read the following resources to learn more about moths and National Moth Week.
- Learn more about National Moth Week here: https://nationalmothweek.org/
- National Moth Week FAQs: https://nationalmothweek.org/frequently-asked-questions/
- Read more about Moths: https://xerces.org/blog/moths-are-cool-too
- Consider joining Project PorchLight on iNaturalist, to help document nocturnal insects, including moths: https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/project-porchlight
Thank you again for your participation!
The Global Pollinator Watch Team
