Been playing catchup on the forum again.....
Thanks to all who commented about some of my passions a while back (many pages). So another passion ..
I have been a very serious Lepidopterist since 1960, not as a profession but as a passion like with all of the natural world. Am well traveled to study their life histories right where they live, from true deserts to tropical rain forests to arctic/alpine habitats and everything in between. Some of the places I visited took days to get to by any means found to be possible. Some I wished I could flap wings to get to instead of long harsh hikes and climbs. I reared them by the 100's of thousands over the years in both personal and collaborated projects with professionals worldwide to learn new things about their life histories, to rebuild colony numbers, try to prevent extinctions and did projects to purchase land to save some of those habitats from the hands of man in Costa Rica, Brazil and Madagascar. During my course over the years I discovered many new specifics of the life histories in dozens of species. While I did all species and their host nectar/larval food plants in an area when I visited it, I specialized in four families and am among the most knowledgeable concerning those. Heck, I even did a rearing project for the USSR to save a species from extinction during the Cold War because I was one of the few that knew how to rear them successfully at the time. Nature's treasures are far more important on this planet than politics IMO. My last active field years were spent right near home in the Spring Mountains. They are an island of habitats from high plateau desert to alpine that is isolated far removed from the higher habitats by desert many miles from them elsewhere. With the genes pools isolated as the climate/habitats changed, many of the plants and animals evolved into their own subspecies and some to species level there over the eons. They are not found anywhere else on earth. Almost all of the endemic Lepidoptera there are endangered now due to habitat loss, some at the hands of man, some from the drought here that's ran on for many years, and from many fires started by lightning. Some of the species/subspecies are now thought to be extinct. For example, one subspecies that is in one of the families:subfamiles I specialized in (Saturniidae: Hemileuciinae) used to fly up there in hoards because of the huge base of their larval food plants that once was there (Symphoricarpos). But with large tracts of the plants destroyed they had not been seen flying for a few years when I moved here 17 years ago. None has been seen again at all since the 3 larva I found up there back in 1998. They are a species that lays several egg rings on several different scattered plants (200-300 eggs). But days on end searching for weeks with my ex and son, I only found those 3 early instar larvae. I reared those in hopes of doing a hand pairing to get a start at least in hopes of a string of new generations for years to rebuild from, but the one male didn't emerge before the two females died of old age at 8-9 days. I mounted them for my synoptic collection because they may have been the last of their kind on earth.
Anyway, if you like Lep pictures I can post them by the handfuls until long after the cows come home.
Been playing catchup on the forum again.....
Thanks to all who commented about some of my passions a while back (many pages). So another passion…..
I have been a very serious Lepidopterist since 1960, not as a profession but as a passion like with all of the natural world. Am well traveled to study their life histories right where they live, from true deserts to tropical rain forests to arctic/alpine habitats and everything in between. Some of the places I visited took days to get to by any means found to be possible. Some I wished I could flap wings to get to instead of long harsh hikes and climbs. I reared them by the 100's of thousands over the years in both personal and collaborated projects with professionals worldwide to learn new things about their life histories, to rebuild colony numbers, try to prevent extinctions and did projects to purchase land to save some of those habitats from the hands of man in Costa Rica, Brazil and Madagascar. During my course over the years I discovered many new specifics of the life histories in dozens of species. While I did all species and their host nectar/larval food plants in an area when I visited it, I specialized in four families and am among the most knowledgeable concerning those. Heck, I even did a rearing project for the USSR to save a species from extinction during the Cold War because I was one of the few that knew how to rear them successfully at the time. Nature's treasures are far more important on this planet than politics IMO. My last active field years were spent right near home in the Spring Mountains. They are an island of habitats from high plateau desert to alpine that is isolated far removed from the higher habitats by desert many miles from them elsewhere. With the genes pools isolated as the climate/habitats changed, many of the plants and animals evolved into their own subspecies and some to species level there over the eons. They are not found anywhere else on earth. Almost all of the endemic Lepidoptera there are endangered now due to habitat loss, some at the hands of man, some from the drought here that's ran on for many years, and from many fires started by lightning. Some of the species/subspecies are now thought to be extinct. For example, one subspecies that is in one of the families:subfamiles I specialized in (Saturniidae: Hemileuciinae) used to fly up there in hoards because of the huge base of their larval food plants that once was there (Symphoricarpos). But with large tracts of the plants destroyed they had not been seen flying for a few years when I moved here 17 years ago. None has been seen again at all since the 3 larva I found up there back in 1998. They are a species that lays several egg rings on several different scattered plants (200-300 eggs). But days on end searching for weeks with my ex and son, I only found those 3 early instar larvae. I reared those in hopes of doing a hand pairing to get a start at least in hopes of a string of new generations for years to rebuild from, but the one male didn't emerge before the two females died of old age at 8-9 days. I mounted them for my synoptic collection because they may have been the last of their kind on earth.
Anyway, if you like Lep pictures I can post them by the handfuls until long after the cows come home.
I'll just put this out here ...
I'm stuck on/off the bench on the Ti X. I said awhile back that I'd make that my first X but didn't realize there was going to be so much competition over them...
... but if anyone has a Paps v3 ss 500 tube they aren't using is love to have another
I'll just put this out here ...
I'm stuck on/off the bench on the Ti X. I said awhile back that I'd make that my first X but didn't realize there was going to be so much competition over them...
... but if anyone has a Paps v3 ss 500 tube they aren't using is love to have another
