Here in North TX, for weeks now, I've been seeing more V. atalanta than ever before - absolute swarms of them. Of course, TX has always been a great place to see swarms of things, but the butterfly numbers here this spring are really outstanding. Not just atalanta, but also cardui and virginiensis ...

Last week, before it snowed, there was an unusual number of V. atlanta around. It warmed up a bit three days ago, albeit with rain. Today it's 64F and sunny. There are hundreds of atlanta, everywhere. Most are flying fast, I've only observed one alight. They are absolutely beat. So either there was ...

I'm unclear why IN has both Classifieds and Marketplace. What's the difference?

Which would be the best to sell some antique and classic entomology books?

Just for reference, it did it again at 1:30pm Eastern.

That luna is spectacular. I have a specimen from KY that has purple edging, but no vertical stripes. AFAIK nobody has done genetic analysis to see what the relationship tree is for luna. Who knows what is variation, and what is something taxonomically significant. Vernon's series of Hyphantria is im...

If they just used common sense, There's your problem. Look, it is universal country-wide that one cannot catch and kill song birds, despite many having very healthy populations. Meanwhile, house cats are allowed to roam freely and have been documented to have a significant negative impact on song b...

Excellent. Of course, field guides have limited space. Species descriptions though often show only one/ one pair, and I have this feeling that the type specimens depicted are sometimes cherry-picked to match the morphological description/ differentiators.

Wisconsin is more like Canada than Upstate NY, so it's quite likely that many or most species can't overwinter. In Upstate NY we have several Nymphalid species that overwinter. The appearance of various Nymphalid species may be migration (e.g., Vanessa) or it may be just massive population explosion...

This type of message is usually used when the host servers are swamped. It's to avoid further usage of the servers, which may serve one website or twenty. Typical causes of high traffic swamping are (1) content that is getting a lot of views [not likely on insectnet, but they might also host a porn ...

OK, so how does one say "they don't have this blue on the FW" without acknowledging this one friggin' specimen? "rarely" seems to be imply perhaps it's more common.

Bunch of tree huggers with big hearts and few brains. "we are shifting the paradigm from collectors with nets, capturing and killing butterflies, to enthusiasts with cameras and binoculars, capturing beautiful images of live butterflies in nature." That's nice. We need more photos of misid...

What I typically do from time to time, is rearrange things, and put them in "better" places. I broke down and spent a weekend doing that last year. What a nightmare. I'd been sticking specimens wherever they fit physically, and I had taxa spread all over in the wrong places. If you want t...

Thanks guys for your compassion. This all started actually a couple days ago when I couldn't find them. Yesterday I made a concerted effort to find them. I went through all my NA Papilio drawers (minus the machaon-types) looking. Four times. Studied each drawer. Nothing. As you probably observed, I ...

I bought a ring light, experimented with it. Now time to re-photo the type specimens for publication. I cannot find them. This shouldn't be hard- all specimens, drawer after drawer after drawer, are collated chronologically. And the last drawer ends just before the capture dates of the type pair. So...

I am missing the point of the original post. ..., step out of their field of expertise and rub elbows with the experienced. The motive isn't to get an answer. There are a myriad of reasons bots and scams post inaccurate stuff: 1. to identify the gullible, and identify those to avoid. This may be at...

Well, if this is all the smarter that AI is at the moment, I'm not too worried about the future of humanity. j There are many with that consensus, and I believe it dangerous. Human technology went from biplanes to jets in six years. AI will mature far faster. It's already used quite often for uneth...

I found this post strange, but I'm not sure it's AI ... wouldn't AI know that species names are spelt with a first small letter, and only genus names with a capital? Adam. AI is available in various packages (programs) and each have owner-adjustable settings for correctness, tone, writing level, an...

It's either AI, or it's Voodoo.

MonaLisa wrote: ↑Wed Apr 24, 2024 2:11 am

Any other ideas?Everything I’ve experienced has gone against received wisdom around moths. For example, they've eaten synthetics, holes have in some cases appeared within 48 hours of me wearing a brand new cotton item. 

Is this AI?

Are you from California or Oregon?

Do you smoke or weld?

When your at the airport. If you have to go to customs. The person I talked to with USFW said that in most cases. They will just ask if they are dead or alive. This is a topic they deal with all the time, that's what they said to me. Which airport? Who is "they"? Anything USFWS tells you ...