About Mothlists

There are many more moths than there are butterflies, but because they mostly fly at night, people don’t pay as much attention to them or know as much about them.   According to Wikipedia there are between 150,000 and 250,000 species of moths.   (NABA estimates there are 20,000 species of butterflies.)  The huge number of moths makes it much more difficult to identify them, and the fact that there are so few field guides makes it even harder.

I came up with the idea for this site after traveling to South America and then trying to identify the moths that I photographed there.  I was looking for photos of identified moths from Ecuador, hoping to find some like the ones I saw.   Lots of people have put photos of moths up on the internet, but it takes quite a bit of research to find them. I thought it might be helpful to have a central place with links to moth lists from many different parts of the world. I hope the site will make it easier for people to learn about the moths they see, and they will look at more moths and make even more lists.

I try to pick lists that have good photos, and I especially like ones that include other kinds of information – on habitat, flight times, life stages, or rarity.

We all do our best to identify moths correctly, but there are bound to be mistakes. If they’re mine, please leave a comment and let me know.

I have two other web sites:
APrairieHaven.com – about the project I’m doing to restore our land back to the way it was before it was settled
and
BugLifeCycles.com – a collection of links documenting the life cycles of insects

Marcie O’Connor
Buffalo County, Wisconsin
USA