WBA member John Davis lights the way to learning.

Imagine finding over 800 species of moths within 30 miles of your own home. WBA member John Davis has done just that from his home in Stevenson (Skamania County), WA.

John is a retired biologist, who has spent the better part of the last 30 years exploring the flora and fauna of the Columbia River Gorge area of Washington and Oregon. His wife Mary, who still teaches high school, often accompanies him. Both grew up in Texas, but have lived mainly in Washington since 1971. John loves to photograph his discoveries and to try and interest others in the many kinds of common and not so common flora, fauna, and scenic things he finds.

So why moths? After retirement, he started by photographing butterflies in his backyard. John has always loved lichens, fungi and other creatures from the forest.

Perhaps it was the moth that looked like lichen that sparked his interest. After a presentation on moths by WBA member Tom Bouchet, John decided he had to learn more about the world of moths and photograph as many as he could find.

In the beginning, John had no idea that there are over 12,000 species of moths in North America (compared to an estimated 800 species of butterflies). Since he retired in 2004, he has photographed approximately 800 species of moths in his area of Washington. He attracts moths to a porch light or in the field with a light powered by a small generator on preferably warm, cloudy or moonless nights with little wind. (His lights can’t outshine the moon). He spends the nights photographing the moths and days identifying his finds (sometimes very difficult with only a photo). There are also quite a few day-flying moths, which are often very wary and hard to photograph.

He notes that different species of moths fly during all seasons of the year (a few even during winter on milder nights), and like butterflies, most moths live a few days up to several weeks. Many moths, like the pretty day-flying black and white Spear-marked moth (Rheumaptera subhastata) and the Isabella Tiger Moth (Pyrrharctia isabella) (wooly bear caterpillar) are common and widespread. Others are habitat specialists, like the some sphinx moths that look and feed like hummingbirds or bumble bees. Many species are not well known and some haven’t even been named or described at all yet, which provides a lot of opportunities for new discoveries. Some of John’s personal favorites are Feralia deceptiva whose colors and pattern mimic greenish lichens on trees, the colorful Underwings (Catocala), and many of the micro moths which, although small, often have very interesting colors and patterns. John has found several State records, many county records, and has found new locations for species recently or currently being described. How far can he go? Despite his remarkable accomplishments, with an estimated 8,000 species of moths in the PNW to look for, he still has a ways to go. John says it all depends on how far he ventures from his local area and how much time he spends on the many micro moths (a few mm in size) yet to be photographed. His greatest pleasure is sharing information with scientists and other moth enthusiasts and helping to ‘spread the virus’ of moth learning and moth photography. John’s excellent photographs of Moths of the Pacific Northwest can be viewed on his Web site: John’s Flickr Galleries.

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