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A Texas "moth man" photographed 550 species in his own yard
- tocs3 2y agoI like this sort of thing. Someone exploring his own little environment. It seems like the sort of thing we should be hearing more about. Maybe some high schools should start promoting some of this.
- steve_adams_86 2y agoThey really should. I know most of the nature documenting I do is totally old hat to anyone actually doing field studies, but the experience is so enriching. The other day I spent 4 hours recording baby coho salmon in disconnected pools along a creek bed. Coho have been researched enough so I’m not doing anything particularly important, but in the process I learned some really cool stuff: - The creek bed is absolutely filled with sculpins. A pool perhaps 3 inches deep and 3 feet in diameter could contain over a dozen of them - Tiny puddles containing perhaps 500ml of water contained half a dozen fish or so; typically sculpins and sticklebacks but occasionally coho fry as well - As the water levels were lowering, dozens of huge ravens were staked out and waiting for stranded fish. I returned days later and sure enough, every dried body of water had been picked clean - The sheer number of nymphs, larvae, and adult arthropods was staggering once I looked closely - Under every rock on the dried creek bed I could find everything from developing insects to animals like frogs hiding out The amount of life far exceeded what I expected. And the diversity of life from micro to macro was also amazing. To think the creek bed extends several kilometres and it’s essentially all like this for most of it (though much drier higher up). I can’t wait to explore it more. I’m mostly curious how the coho will manage before rains return, and at this point it looks pretty grim. Some pools with at least 100 individuals will almost certainly be okay, but many more smaller pools containing dozens of fish are rapidly draining. The ravens are having an easy summer, I think. edit: I have some videos and photos here https://steve-adams.me/coho/ https://steve-adams.me/coho/ (I don't normally share what I record but recently decided I might as well, because I wish more people did).
- tocs3 2y agoThe Coho post you made is nice. Something good to share. I am a fan of Stephen Jay Gould's writing (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Jay_Gould https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Jay_Gould) Good science writing is a joy to read.
- steve_adams_86 2y agoIt really is a joy, isn’t it? Thank you for reading that and for pointing out Gould. I’ll have to check out his writing soon.
- whalesalad 2y agoI saw a plume moth the other day and thought it was an IUD lol
- darth_avocado 2y agoI’m more impressed by the fact that 550 species visited his yard. Must have a really boss yard.
- hooverd 2y agoOnly 10k more to go. There really are an obscene number of moth (and beetle) species.
- digging 2y agoProbably does, but if you pay close attention to the moths around your house over a year, I expect you'll exceed your estimates by an order of magnitude at least. They're incredibly diverse. (And many are super small, that you probably don't normally pay attention to or realize are moths.)
- pvaldes 2y agoIs not really difficult to find this amount of biodiversity on most wild temperate gardens. With some effort you can easily have a collection of two thousand species of plants on a middle size garden if you want, plus animals attracted by those plants. On tropical ones the number should be much, much higher.
- nemo 2y agoI'm in a suburb in Austin, I did chop out part of the lawn to plant a pollinator garden, but it's nothing really special. I made a project for my house, and I'm at 550 species total, 250 Lepidoptera (moths and butterflies). That's really just a result of regular observations. Every month I pick up at least a few new species. In the spring and fall I pick up a bunch, typically. Keeps adding up over time, and with moths there's a lot of species out there.
- joss82 2y agoTexas yard is the size of a small country
- gottorf 2y agoFun fact: El Paso, TX is closer to the Pacific (via the Gulf of California) than it is to its own state capital, Austin.
- positr0n 2y agoWow that's my new favorite Texas geography fact. My old one is that Amarillo is closer to Chicago than Brownsville, at the southern tip of Texas.
- bankcust08385 2y agoSo is a good portion of the state. Not really all that meaningful.
- bankcust08385 2y agoIt doesn't have to be because proximity to meadows or forests in Texas have enormous biodiversity. My mom's tiny 1/3 acre home killed a good 1 lbs. / 1 cu ft of flying critters in one day with a bug zapper.
- justsadtbh 2y ago[flagged]
- xipho 2y agoOne of my previous advisors, while working on a PhD in sociality in insects, had a lot of time to spend in a front lawn in New York City. Trained to observe he recorded hundreds of species, on that lawn. Another insect curator I worked with (also from Texas), collected in a nearby park throughout his lifetime (still is I'm sure). Collected well over 1000 species of beetles, alone. Both were highly, highly trained, in a way that is increasingly disappearing. There are many, many other stories like this. That training included as much how and where to look as it did technical assessment (e.g. what you needed to see to identify species). Because of a whole pile of factors, stubborn old-timers, new technologies, lack of foresight and vision, we're losing that expertise rapidly. By the time we need answers from the vast genetic experiments that come from the lab that is Earth's evolution, we'll not know where, or how to look for them.
- NavinF 2y agoI think it's more so that people aren't interested. If you trained a neural network to classify species using photos taken through a binocular microscope, I'm sure you could match human performance. If you used hyperspectral photos you could achieve superhuman performance.
- pvaldes 2y ago> I'm sure you could match human performance Not. You still would need an human to sample this moths, kill them appropriately, and manipulate it carefully to move it in the correct position under your binocular in the correct light and place. They are fragile and you can't do it without an human. Would be worse than what you have currently. No capability to sample selectively, or to jump in advance to all the interesting parts (instead to do all the walk for every single species). In the end you will have a worst performance, much more work to do, and none of the trained experts available to put any control in your system. Mimetic moths can deceive even a well trained expert.
- spunker540 2y agoWhat if we swap the computer vision solution for a genetic sequencing solution? Can DNA tests can do moth identification at human-level performance?
- IG_Semmelweiss 2y agoFor those that don't know, there's a double entendre on the story title. The "moth man" is a well known urban legend in northeastern USA. A movie was even filmed on the premise [1] . A "texas mothman" playfully may suggest to some that the terror is "migrating" https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mothman_Prophecies_(film) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mothman_Prophecies_(film...
- bloopernova 2y agoAnd mothman was allegedly seen in Chicago too! Kyle Kinane does a fantastic Chicago Mothman accent: https://podcasts.apple.com/lu/podcast/chicago-mothman/id1139926236?i=1000391057051 https://podcasts.apple.com/lu/podcast/chicago-mothman/id1139...
- analog31 2y agoThe Mythical Man-Moth -- Apologies to Fred Brooks
- oddthink 2y agoElizabeth Bishop was there first: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/47537/the-man-moth https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/47537/the-man-moth
- Loughla 2y agoMonster self-help manuals are something I didn't know I wanted until right now. And it turns out a lot of them still work without changing the titles. -Opening Your Presence: Presenting the YOU You Want Others to See For ghosts. -Good Power: Leading Positive Change in Our Lives, Work, and World Frankenstein's monster -True North The yeti -Once an Eagle Rok -multipliers Werewolves or Dracula maybe?
- ssl-3 2y agoAs a native of Ohio who has visited The Moth Man Museum[0], I take certain exception to this region being called "northeastern USA." It's close, but it's not quite there [1]. 0: https://www.mothmanmuseum.com/ https://www.mothmanmuseum.com/ 1: https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/united-states-regions/ https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/united-sta...
- gyanreyer 2y agoI just saw an Ailanthus Webworm moth this morning in Michigan and was struck by how different it looked from most insects I see here. They're native to the south but have apparently been starting to adapt to colder conditions and move further north thanks to the massive explosion of the horribly invasive Tree of Heaven, which is somehow still legal for nurseries to sell even though it is extremely aggressive and is a host for Spotted Lanternflies. Anyways, since I've gotten into native plant gardening I have gained a huge appreciation for insects. You can find some really amazing things in your own yard if you pay attention.
- laristine 2y agohttps://archive.is/zjEuP https://archive.is/zjEuP
- GaggiX 2y agoThis man is probably one of the very few who have read hundreds or possibly thousands of obscure Wikipedia pages about various species and families of moths. Some of the most obscure Wikipedia pages are about species of moth.
- bankcust08385 2y agoSomeone IDing moths isn't using Wikipedia.
- zeagle 2y ago> Moths aren’t just pretty to look at; they’re also important pollinators and a major source of food for birds and bats. But moths, like insects overall, are declining in both raw numbers and species diversity. Eckerman says recent studies have shown at least a 30 percent decline in insect abundance around the world over the past few decades. The likely culprits are pesticides and the loss of habitat to urban development. A threat to insects such as moths is a threat to the plants they pollinate and all the creatures above them in the food chain. It's amazing the drop in biodiversity of insects that comes from habitat destruction, monoculture, pesticide (ab)use. As a kid we'd drive across the prairies and have to wipe literal goop off the windshield and side view mirrors at each gas station... We planted native prairie plants throughout our yard roughly sequenced that something is always flowering. This morning I saw at least a dozen wild bees on one bunch of goldenrod* and nothing on the annuals next to it. * https://www.canada.ca/en/environment-climate-change/services/species-risk-public-registry/management-plans/riddells-goldenrod-2015.html https://www.canada.ca/en/environment-climate-change/services... (not invasive for my region)
- 2cynykyl 2y agoI remember the first time someone pointed out this lack of bug splatter to me and I was a bit scared about humanity's fate, but then someone else pointed out that our cars are a LOT more aerodynamic now. Not sure which side to land on here.
- frereubu 2y agoThis UK study used number plates, which haven't changed form between the two years (2004 and 2021), and have found a decline of just under 60%. Aerodynamics may have something to do with it, but I know from driving through insect-abundant areas recently that you still get plenty of splatter in modern cars. Overview: https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/news/2022/may/uks-flying-insects-have-declined-60-in-20-years.html https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/news/2022/may/uks-flying-inse... Study PDF: https://cdn.buglife.org.uk/2022/05/Bugs-Matter-2021-National-Report.pdf https://cdn.buglife.org.uk/2022/05/Bugs-Matter-2021-National...
- undebuggable 2y agoMoths are aliens in their looks and vast diversity. My backyard favorite is hummingbird hawk-moth.
- throwup238 2y agoI'm partial to the Death's-head Hawkmoth and the Ceanothus Silkmoth.
- steve_adams_86 2y agoI saw those for the first time in 2022 and I was amazed that it existed. What a strange creature. I thought it was actually a hummingbird at first, and then its details emerged to me and I realized what I was seeing. So strange. And huge, for a bug! It was cruising around at dusk feeding on nectar.
- undebuggable 2y agoThe moth is large for a bug, and hummingbird is tiny for a bird. It takes some time to realize what we're looking at.
- somishere 2y agoI've heard of these, they sound amazing! We get the odd Hercules moth in our backyard. Doesn't look anything like a bird close up, but it's so massive that when they get stuck in the house your first thought is that it's a bird or bat. Another cool thing we get is jumping spiders that imitate ants so they can hunt them - both green ants (an endemic weaver ant we get here) and another large metallic silver ant species I don't know a lot about. The spiders share the colouring of each species and walk backwards amongst them - their walking style changes and the abdomen looks like the head of the ant. They're rare, I've only observed them a couple of times over the years here, but it's wild to watch them do their thing.
- justincormack 2y agothey are great, but only seen them in my front yard, and abroad.
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- Morizero 2y agoHere's his inaturalist profile: https://www.inaturalist.org/users/256619 https://www.inaturalist.org/users/256619 19,715 observations of 3,892 species. Incredible contributor!
- zendaven 2y agoThanks! Wanted to see more pictures like these in the article.
- Natsu 2y agoIt's sad to me that the 'common' buckeye seems to be anything but common these days, it's always been one of my favorites to look at.
- s0rce 2y agoSome of these are amazing https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/233201888 https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/233201888
- kroeckx 2y agohttps://www.inaturalist.org/lifelists/cmeckerman?view=tree&taxon_id=47157 https://www.inaturalist.org/lifelists/cmeckerman?view=tree&t... says he has 1044 different species of the order Lepidoptera.
- thomasreggi 2y agokeep a little moth under my pillow for the "moth man"
- fnord77 2y agohis "yard" seems to be pretty huge
- macintux 2y agoAlmost completely irrelevant, but I was astonished one day as I walked through the outskirts of Dallas: there was a yard nearly at eye level with a retaining wall, and the grass was overflowing with snails. I don’t know how many times in my life I’ve actually seen a snail outside of water, it’s very rare for me, but this was effectively an infestation. Surreal.
- originalvichy 2y agoFunnily enough I have never seen a snail in water.
- sangnoir 2y agoIn many places in Texas, the soil can ruin foundations of single-storey buildings if allowed to cycle between wet and dry. To overcome this, watering the foundation is a requirement to maintain a baseline soil humidity level. Snails thrive in damp conditions.
- mjh2539 2y agoThis is mostly a myth. It's impossible to actually keep only the soil underneath one's home a consistent degree of wet. If you water the soil under your house, the water eventually gets sucked out by capillary action to all of the dry parts of your lawn (and your neighbors lawn). It would only work if everyone watered EVERYWHERE, by a uniform amount.
- macintux 2y agoThe concept seemed unsustainable to me, thanks for the follow-up.
- pvaldes 2y agoSome snails join to aestivate. They climb grasses to take advantage of the cooling effect of the breeze, search protection on numbers and jail itselves on a protective membrane to sleep during the hotter days.
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- alberth 2y agoOT: it’s amazing how fewer bugs, inspects, etc exist today than when I was a kid. I still have vivid memories of car trips and the windowshield & the front of car - being completely covered with dead bugs. I have to imagine all those bugs were food for moths.
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- DonaldFisk 2y agoI can remember this too. But moth larvae feed on plants and the adults drink nectar from flowers. They don't eat other insects.
- rbanffy 2y agoIt’s only a Moth Man if he comes from the Point Pleasant region. Otherwise it’s just a weird entomologist.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- kemmishtree 2y agoTalk to the little green guy in the upper right corner, though he probably doesn't remember posing for a photo opp with that statue in Point Pleasant several years ago... www.molecularReality.com
- aurizon 2y agoAs a kid, in Toronto, I joined the Junior Field Naturalists in 1951 and attended many lectures and exploration field trips. I found it very informative, however I became a Chemist later on. https://www.rom.on.ca/en/romrecollects/stories/keyword/junior-field-naturalists https://www.rom.on.ca/en/romrecollects/stories/keyword/junio...
- nemo 2y agoNice! I've got a house iNat project with an ever expanding pollinator garden so I can pick up more species without having to travel. I'm at ~250 Lepidoptera.
- tzs 2y agoIt's astounding how many different species of insects you can find even if you limit yourself to just a fairly small area. In the book "Life on a Little Known Planet: A Biologist's View of Insects and Their World" [1] the author says that he used to set out insect traps every summer at his home in--if I remember correctly--New England, and every summer he would find species that were unknown to him. He'd then check the literature to identify them and every summer would find that he'd caught some that were unknown to science. The author's research was on parasitic wasps and he was one of the world's foremost authorities on the subject, yet his summer traps would even trap parasitic wasps that were not yet known to science. Think about that--this was not in some remote area that humans had barely reached where finding unknown plants and animals is something you'd expect. This was at a professor's house in a part of the planet that has been extensively explored for centuries. [1] https://www.amazon.com/Life-Little-Known-Planet-Biologists/dp/1558212493 https://www.amazon.com/Life-Little-Known-Planet-Biologists/d...
- jlarocco 2y agoI'm surprised, but not too surprised. I read somewhere that there can be over 10 billion virus particles in a liter of sea water. There's no way we know everything in there. It's easier to see and count larger things, but we're really just point sampling a HUGE space when it comes to looking at living creatures. And life is kind of a continuum - it's not like one day a neandrathal gave birth to a human and that was that - each new generation is a new level of the tree evolving in a certain direction and slightly different than anything that came before it.
- jvm___ 2y agoThe average number of legs of living things is 0.01. "If you count up all the animals in the world, the average number of legs each animal has is 0.01 legs. This is because the huge numbers of nematodes in the world, which have no legs. There are 10 to the power of 22 nematodes in the world, which means there are 100 times more nematodes than mites in the world, and 1,000 times more nematodes than insects. One nematode lives as a parasite in the human eye that can grow up to 7cm in length."
- ofalkaed 2y agoIt is pretty amazing the amount of diversity any small plot of land will show. I used to start my days going over my yard on my hands and knees hunting mushrooms, no idea how many I identified but it is certainly hundreds, someday I will count. Had a brief stint with insects and bugs but they turned out to be far too high strung for me after all that time i spent watching mushrooms grow.
- kroeckx 2y agoOn iNaturalist there are many people who monitor a specific area like their garden. Those contain links to such projects: https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/home-projects-umbrella https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/home-projects-umbrella https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/museum-grounds-and-gardens https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/museum-grounds-and-gard... There probably are a lot more such projects on it.
- adultSwim 2y agoTexas Monthly can go toe-to-toe with the New Yorker.