‘Moth-ers’ Celebrate Less-Loved Lepidopterans
10:09 minutes
It’s National Moth Week, and all over the country moth enthusiasts, or “moth-ers,” can be found holding flashlights to white sheets and painting beer-laced bait on trees in hopes of attracting butterflies’ neglected cousins of the night. Elena Tartaglia, a co-founder of National Moth Week, talks about the strange and beautiful insects, and the best ways to observe them.
Check out this SciFri story about the Io moth, which symbolizes National Moth Week.
Elena Tartaglia is co-founder of National Moth Week and an ecologist at Bergen Community College in Paramus, New Jersey.
Christopher Intagliata was Science Friday’s senior producer. He once served as a prop in an optical illusion and speaks passable Ira Flatowese.