More impactful, I left a zip lock bag full of cigars too close to a cabin window once in the Dominican Republic. Someone reached in and swiped 5 of the cigars (leaving about 10 probably thinking I wouldn't notice). In the frigg'in cigar capital of the world! I beg to disagree John. Much as I like D...

More impactful, I left a zip lock bag full of cigars too close to a cabin window once in the Dominican Republic. Someone reached in and swiped 5 of the cigars (leaving about 10 probably thinking I wouldn't notice). In the frigg'in cigar capital of the world! I beg to disagree John. Much as I like D...

Yep, Larry told me that he's been working on it for a lomg time, but things keep changing. I don't think it's imminent.

A controversial character... I know a few people who said they got ripped off by him, but I dealt with him a few times and never had a problem. I met him 3 times when he came over to Europe, he was a larger than life character and good company, he certainly knew a lot about the insect trade. He was ...

Charaxes have never really done it for me, but I've always had a soft spot for Polyura, and I think posidonius is the most spectacular of all of them!

Over the past couple of decades, I've become concerned that the hobby will largely die out and just fade away, as we get further into the 21st century. It seems as though there is more of a push to criticize and discourage collecting, than to promote it (at least, in the US). Even more so here in E...

They're not open access Chuck, but I'll email you one.

Indeed, I have a large collection of Castniidae, including C. asteropoides , in fact, I have most of the type series of it. I don't have time to take new photos right now, but I'm including a couple of photos of part of my series taken a few years ago. This species is interesting as it's one of the ...

I've always used black nets. They're not too visible, but most importantly, they're easy to see through. I have tried a white bag, but it was impossible to clearly see what was inside. I've never seen a green bag. There are arguments that it's worth using a bag colour that attracts the intended prey...

Don't worry, they'll lose them in the final instar.

I always use Excel for my labels too. I use Times New Roman 4pt bold, which I find is quite readable and the label's still small enough to fit under the specimen. I need a magnifying glass to read it, but younger eyes shouldn't have such a problem.

I've reared many species of Brahmaea and fortunately, they're pretty easy, but they do eat huge quantities when they get big! One thing that helps is that they're not very good at climbing, so when large, I just keep them in an uncoverered plastic dustbin, I collect armfuls of privet twice a day and...

Merry Christmas to everyone here.

I've only found time to watch the second, shorter video so far. Love the blue streaks on the underside! They do seem to keep themselves in remarkably good condition. In the second video, I only noticed one that had any damage at all. Shame there weren't any females.

The obituary is here: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/obituaries/ ... -obituary/. Although you'll need to sugn up to a free trial to read the whole thing.

I read his obituary in the Daily Telegraph when I was in my way to the Natural Histiory Museum in London about 3 weeks ago. I told the staff there but didn't think to report it here. I met him a couple of times in the 70s when he came back to London, and he was a very personable and knowledgeable gu...

Admittedly, they do have a big impact on the songbird population, but I love cats and am horrified that anyone would want to shoot one.

Yes, because it's a species-group name, which doesn't differentiate between species and subspecies. Whether canadensis is regarded as a species of subspecies, the taxon is still canadensis.

You can't give anything a new name unless the original name is invalid, even if it's to avoid confusion. The only way that maria would be invalid is if it's a homonym, and the single letter difference is enough for it not to be, there are plenty of such instances. So cyclops has no standing and beco...

For me, if I have one specimen that looks a bit different, I'd just write it off as a variant/ form. If I have twenty of something that looks consistently different, it makes me ask why. I think everyone can agree with that. I've found a few taxa described a long time ago from a single specimen. Wh...