11 Months In

The "Moths of Oklahoma" project was created May 18, 2017, so it's been just under 11 months and we have already logged 465 species in the state! That's awesome! At this point in time there are 1546 unique observations from 64 people.

I got interested in moths myself a year ago while participating in Oklahoma's Virtual Spring BioBlitz because I found it was easy to bring in numerous species to my front porch light every evening and add more observations. After the month of April was over, I continued logging moths on just about a nightly basis. I have a pretty good understanding of the moths that I can encounter in my suburban neighborhood in central Oklahoma, but there is still a lot of ground to cover in the state.

Our observations do spread across the state, but are clustered in the most densely populated areas, with an additional cluster of observations around Broken Bow. I'm looking forward to seeing our map of observations slowly fill in. I haven't done a real analysis, but it looks like the vast majority of counties have 0-1 observations at this time.

I am planning to do a few mothing nights in east Norman over the next month. Basically I just hang a white sheet in an open field and point a spotlight at it just after sunset and then hangout for a couple of hours taking photos of everything that comes to the sheet. If anyone is interested in joining me, let me know. Or feel free to set up a dedicated evening of mothing in your area. The real dedicated moth-ers setup light traps that actually collect the moths, which can then be assessed the next morning.

National Moth Week is July 21-29 this year and there is a dedicated iNaturalist project for that effort. During that week I make sure to check my front porch every evening and log my sightings to both the "National Moth Week" and "Moths of Oklahoma" projects.

Have fun and keep mothing!
Zach

Posted on April 13, 2018 03:00 PM by zdufran