We have a good knowledge of Pacific Northwest (PNW) butterflies. There’s always more to learn of course but the growing body of knowledge about the diversity, distribution, and life histories of six families, 68 genera, and more than 200 species of PNW butterflies is a laudable accomplishment. That success has been in large part due to not just to efforts of professional lepidopterists but also to a legion of dedicated amateur butterfly-watchers, now referred to as citizen scientists.

Although our growing cumulative knowledge of butterflies and their biology is always tentative and incomplete, as is the case for all scientific knowledge, it’s fair to say that our current understanding of PNW butterflies is much more accurate and comprehensive today than it was 50 years ago when I was an undergraduate student of zoology at Central Washington University. That’s wonderful.

Increasingly satisfied with what we do know about butterflies, it seems cogent to pause to acknowledge the fact that butterflies represent just 5-10 percent of PNW lepidoptera. So an obvious question arises: What do we know about the non-butterflies’, the 90-95 percent of the metaphorical dark matter of PNW Lepidoptera?

Well, we do know something. A close reading of the Moths and Butterflies’ portion of Merrill Peterson’s comprehensive field guide, Pacific Northwest Insects (see pp. 344-417), reveals the possibility that there may be more than 3,245 species of moths in the PNW. That’s a reasoned, educated guess, of course, and I think it’s a good estimate. But I would not be surprised to learn that this estimate may be conservative.

Bob Pyle has acknowledged our ignorance of the diversity of PNW moths in both of his comprehensive field guides to PNW butterflies (see pp. 30 and 366, The Butterflies of Cascadia, by Robert Michael Pyle, 2002 and p. 419, Butterflies of the Pacific Northwest, by Robert Michael Pyle and Caitlin C. Labar, 2018). I concur. There is much still to learn about PNW moths, though year by year our knowledge is slowly increasing.

We now know quite a lot about the identities, life histories, and distributions of about 40-45 percent of PNW moth species, as evidenced in the digital website PNW Moths (see http://pnwmoths.biol.wwu.edu/) , which is an astonishingly complete resource of knowledge on 10 families, 327 genera, and 1,210 species of PNW macromoths. It is notable that this excellent resource does not yet include information, for example, about six large and common moth families (e.g., Geometridae, Tortricidae, Gelechiidae, Crambidae, Pyralidae, and Coleophoriade). Note: Merrill Peterson and Jon Shepard plan to include the Geometridae in an upcoming and much-anticipated revision of the PNW Moths website.

This is good news because the geometrids represent a diverse and ubiquitous macromoth family that includes many genera and species.

What of the other 35-40 families of moths, I wonder? What about those overlooked but perhaps ecologically important families of micromoths? We still know very little if anything about 55-60 percent of PNW moth species! Our current knowledge of the identities, distributions, and life histories of PNW moth species seems woefully incomplete compared to our knowledge of PNW butterflies. I’m hoping that will change over the next decade or two when we begin to pay more attention to the dark matter of lepidopterology. Hence my clarion call: It’s time to pay attention to the “dark matter” of lepidoptery!

My journey into the nocturnal hinterlands of “Mothlandia” began a dozen years ago in the Red River Valley of North Dakota and

Minnesota. For seven years (2011-2017) of my 25-year residency in North Dakota, from March through November of each year, I dutifully documented the diversity of the midwestern moth fauna within a 60-mile radius of my home. The singular effort proved productive. I found more than 830 species of moths, representing 450 genera and 35 families. It was a lot of work, but it was also a lot of fun.

Segue to Spokane, Washington. It has been my ambition to ‘learn my local leps’ since moving to Spokane in mid-August 2017. Compulsive to the core, I began a similar ‘moth project’ when I relocated to Spokane. I live on the edge of a rural residential neighborhood that is located several miles from the southern suburbs of the city. My home is proximal to two well-known Conservation Areas that border the east and west ridges of the Latah Creek drainage basin, just north of the rolling Palouse wheatlands and east of the sagebrush-step scablands. The focus of my ‘local lep education’ began in my own Spokane County backyard and extended to a radius of some 20 miles to the east and west to include both local Conservation Areas as well as a portion of the Turnbull NWR. That delimits the boundaries of my ‘Mothlandia.’

What have I learned about ‘local leps’ after four years? I’ve learned that my knowledge of local moths remains woefully incomplete, that I’ve more work yet to do, and that four years is not enough time for me to encounter all of my local leps! I have learned something more. Over the last four years of intensive ‘mothing’ I have learned to identify 755 species of moths, representing 414 genera and 45 families. It’s a good start.

A clarion call to action. I invite you to consider joining me in the ‘citizen science’ endeavor of finding and documenting the moths found here in the PNW. Your educational journey may begin in your own backyard, a vacant lot, a nearby city, county or state park or perhaps a local Conservation Area. I can help.

Some Pedagogical Aids

Although my knowledge of PNW moths is far from complete, I’m eager to share what I’ve learned with others who may have in interest in learning their local moths.

Videos. I’ve made a 10-part video series that describes in some detail my protocol and techniques for finding and photographing local moths (see Backyard mothing with Carl Barrentine in Spokane, Washington, USA – National Moth Week). Note: I embrace a ‘catch, photograph, and release’ philosophy of lepidoptery. I’m not opposed to collecting specimens for research purposes but, I just do not have the requisite time to pin, spread, and label the many, many thousands of moths I handle each year. It’s all I can do to get good digital images of living moths.

Photographs. Digital images of local moths, including relevant data, are archived with Bug Guide, an Iowa State University entomological database that I’ve been contributing to for a dozen years now (see Carl D. BarrentineBugGuide.Net). I’ve also archived images of moths with Field guide-Leps, a cellphone app developed by mothing friend Andre Poremski (see Carl Barrentine | Fieldguide) that is popular with those who archive images with iNaturalist. Finally, I’ve archived images of moths with two Facebook groups, ‘Mothing and Moth-watching’ and ‘Butterflies and Moths of the Pacific Northwest.’

I invite you to please join me in learning your local moths.

G’num2022Vol23No1